


Saving Face

by Helicon



Series: Saving Face [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Epilepsy, F/F, F/M, Gen, In more ways than one, Insomnia, Intrusive Thoughts, LGBT characters, Multi, Near Death Experiences, Oblivion Crisis gets mentioned a bit, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Acceptance, Self-Destruction, Superstition, Switch to mother tongue to talk shit, Whump, inappropriate times for a boner, inferiority-superiority complex, long carriage rides, long walks, magic headcanoneering, mundane concepts interpreted supernaturally, stories told through flashback, supernatural concepts interpreted mundanely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-08-07 10:00:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 24
Words: 20,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helicon/pseuds/Helicon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding anonymity in Skyrim is harder than it looks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Prying both eyes off of the cliff face,  he takes a moment to breathe. Breathe, and analyze his surroundings: a perfect blue sky, save only for a couple clouds. A tern every so often, gliding close enough to make out the black head, the snow-white feathers -- a little too close. The distant shore to his left, nothing he can see very well to his right.

 

As he looks down, his heart jumps into his throat and quickens its pulse a thousandfold. Anxiety tightens his ribs around both lungs, makes bile rise high in his throat, and forces him to shut his eyes. There is no time to sight-see anymore, if only due to the fearful tears threatening to blind him now. Sweat beads on his palms and forehead and along with it comes the inevitable, inescapable urge to let go.

 

_ The wind will catch you. _

 

_ Are you insane?! _

 

His arms are weak; when he tries to haul himself up, he can hear his elbows pop. They might have been stronger in another life, but his bones are brittle and light, and they are all that hold him in the frigid air. 

 

Nobody had stayed, nobody that he can see; nobody who can hear him, or who had heard him screaming at a volume loud enough to deafen.

 

Solstheim is a small island, for certain, but perhaps his cries had been lost in the valley below.

 

_ I need to get  _ off _ of this island… _

 

_ Let go. _

 

Damn her. Damn the girl who’d hired and left him here, and damn him for not remembering her name to damn her proper. Damn his own two eyes for not working the way they should.

 

His grip on the edge of the cliff begins to fail. Fingers slip, scramble, seize…

 

_ Let go! _

 

Time slows as the ground grows closer, but despite falling back-first, it isn’t the sky that he sees. It’s the sparkling ocean sunset, towering mushrooms and massive pod cities. A view from the shoulders of a much older mer -- his size and silver mane made him stick out among the tame-haired mages -- then a parted crowd in the market, the very aforementioned rushing toward him. Restraint. 

 

It’s black and white flashing lights and the world through a tiny window; a great many faces up in his, one-by-one, some severe and others bright, joyous. A teenage girl in full-body with glassy eyes, messy hair, and trembling everything: lips, hands, body.

 

It’s hulking, disfigured men and mer and long-faced beasts in the sewers, and once more, the lights. Priests and healers in blue, a concerned-looking woman in his peripherals. 

 

It’s creaking bones and bright white stone, blue-green lights that come to mean danger more than they do opportunity. 

 

It’s fire and daedra and his own blood mixed in with others’ in the ash. An obscenely tall, gaunt, mixed-elf with gentle hands like ashen spiders, hair like gold, and hunger in her bright orange eyes.

 

It’s death that never comes for him. Not at the hands of warped Corprus monsters or cultists or self-restrained vampires. Not metres from Oblivion, not metres from the solid ground.

 

A sharp tug upward brings bile that had once been content to remain in his throat into his mouth. He opens his eyes to find himself above the ground, floating, suspended with his knees halfway to his chest, barely recalling having casted any levitation spells -- but how else can he explain what has happened? While on any other day this would be cause for celebration, and while to any sane person it  _ should _ , his first concern is his pockets. That girl’s coin was his way out, but not if he’d survived the fall in its place.

 

_ I suppose I should be a little more thankful for being alive. _

 

A quick grope of his pockets yields no surprise -- at least half, if not more, has been lost in his descent. Not nearly as much of a problem as he’d anticipated. Two-hundred, tops, would get him off this blasted rock and a bed in the next city for a while at best… wherever that would be. Back to Blacklight, perhaps? Or onwards to Skyrim? A new place, where nobody knew him… the opportunity of a new life presents itself to him in such a favorable light that he actually considers it.

 

As a consequence of his distraction, he then drops roughly the equivalent of his height to the ground. A comparatively soft landing, but still one that puts a nasty ache in his tailbone.

 

On standing, surrounded on one side by the mountains and the other by ocean, he feels, suddenly, very small. He doesn’t matter to the rock, nor to the water, and though his extensive knowledge of philosophical writings would argue that this was a discovery of one’s smallness in the world, all it really does is scare him.

 

“Not the time,” he grumbles, brushing off his pants. “ _Not_ the time.” The pain in his back proves to be a very successful distraction.

 

How far is Raven Rock from here? For as far as the eye can see -- which, when he puts some thought into it, is not far at all -- there is no ash or dust. There is only snow and rock, tundra grass and ice. Small though Solstheim is, it is remarkably easy to get lost in, and be attacked in, and then, likely, die in…

 

_ Shut up. Shut up. Are you a wizard or not? _

 

_ Clearly not. You didn’t even mean to cast that levitation spell. _

 

_ But that would make me a better wizard, wouldn’t it? To do it without thinking! _

 

_ Shut up. _

 

With only his fingers, a situation he comes to lament rather a lot, he brushes back his thick hair and re-makes a ponytail. There is absolutely no sense to go about with hair in his face, though the neatness with which he executes his styling leaves much to be desired.

  
Before finally setting off, he pauses to make a prayer of thanks: to whomever would listen, if anyone would. Luck has never been quite so much on his side as it was today, and he does not expect it to last long -- Nethyn Vari, born half-strangled  and bearing a mark of Daedra in his broken pupils, was, after all, cursed.


	2. Chapter 2

He trudges, shivering, through the half-melted slush, out of ice and into ash. A wasteland is a wasteland, but at least this one is more familiar. It’s comforting in that sense, in the knowledge that at least he will not freeze here.

 

In the ash storm he is forced to squint, but in the tavern, he keeps his eyes lidded, like a man on the verge of sleep. It isn’t like the usual occupants don’t think him strange already ( _any_ Telvanni straying this far from Tel Mithryn is a bad sign, or so goes the local superstition), so why not take the extra step, act a little stranger if it keeps worse murmurs out?

 

A woman at a table with her friends, her long brown hair in close rows of braids, stops her contribution to their hushed chatter to watch him pass. She catches his eye as well, and prompts him to turn on his heel, to give her a scathing look that silences the other girls momentarily as well. There is a look of realization: awkward, horrible realization, in the young woman’s eyes. The one who takes her shoulder and turns her away all but spits in his direction -- her hair is curly and red like the volcano, her cheeks round and freckled. Her accent is notably Cyrodiilic, syllables clipped where they should have been drawn out.

 

As he turns to leave, she turns to the other woman and whispers, “It’s okay. That waist could’ve fooled anyone…”

 

In utter indignation, he thrusts his chin up and shoulders back, caring a mite more than he originally had about the minimal sway of his hips.

 

This will be his last night in this room, in the Retching Netch, on Solstheim… potentially, Morrowind itself. Turning from the mirror, he swiftly disrobes, lets down his hair, sits on the bed in a shirt and short pants and realizes that he simply cannot sleep. He is sore, exhausted, but he is inexplicably awake.

 

There is an argument outside, one that Nethyn doesn’t need to come closer to the door to hear. A man and a woman, it sounds like, going at each other rather verbally in a language he can barely make out. The woman lapses into the local Redoran dialect occasionally, and from what he can decipher, it’s something about the mine.

 

None of his business, then.

 

It takes hours for him to finally settle down and keep his eyes shut, and when he does, he dreams of the messy-haired girl.

  
It takes the week that entails travel and several days’ worth of living there to decide that maybe, just maybe, he can deal with Skyrim better than Solstheim.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry the chapters are a little on the shorter side -- I've been pre-writing these in a google doc, and with the settings I have to use (poor eyesight and all), sometimes it looks like I've written more than I actually have. There will be chapters about the same length as this for a while, some shorter, but I recently finished a longer one that will go up sometime later.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's been reading and leaving kudos so far!

Windhelm, the city of the port that the boat’s been docked at, looks more like a stony prison than a city. The walls are high and give off a chill worse than the air; the guards whose faces he  _ can _ see give him a look that tells him to keep on moving, catch the carriage out, get as far away as possible. Not for his own good, but because they just do not want them. He can't fathom it, as little of a fan of Nords as he is, but he understands that he must leave.

 

And he does. The unknown far outweighs whatever must await him there, at least as far as benefits are concerned, and he doesn’t have to test the waters to understand that. The carriage driver gives him a twice, thrice-over when he asks what the next city west is.

 

Cyrodiilic seems to be as widespread in the western provinces as he had figured, or at least widespread enough that the driver knows what he means and responds in kind, in a thick Nordic accent but in kind nonetheless.

 

“Closest city’s Whiterun,” he says. “Week at most, if the weather keeps up how it’s been keepin’ up.”

 

“Bad?”

 

“Bad.”

 

“How close can you take me to Cyrodiil?”

 

The man laughs without humor. “I wouldn’t if I were you, son.” There is something in his eyes that is not quite concern, but not condescension either. “Imperials’re just lookin’ to jump up ‘n capture anyone they think is a rebel. Stopped to let a whole caravan of ‘em pass about a week ago, I did.”

 

Nethyn shakes his head and decides that this, too, is none of his business. “How much to Whiterun?” he asks.

 

Soon he is fifteen coins lighter and on the road, or more specifically, drawn over to the side for the night for the horse to rest. There is no town nearby, no inn and no place to park it, so they make to camp here and Nethyn demonstrates a rune that, at its weakest, will incapacitate troublemakers.

The driver, whose name he learns is Alfarinn, mutters something about ‘elf magic’ and witches, but hardly objects. He tosses him a blanket and they both make themselves as comfortable as possible on either side of the carriage, but Nethyn can’t find it in himself to sleep. 

There is nothing on his mind that should be preventing him from sleeping -- he only feels restless. The little not-quite-subconscious voice from the cliff pipes up, whispers something that he can’t grasp no matter how hard he tries, forces him up and out with as little carriage-rocking as possible. His legs ache with lack of recent use, and are coupled by a burning sensation in both arms, likely from hyperextension. How long had he been holding onto the ledge? 

In time, however, it doesn’t matter so much what the root causes are, only that he  _ moves. _ He is used to forgoing sleep in favor of motion; insomnia is nothing new to him, and this, he has found, is his best way to combat it.

He does fall asleep eventually. 

He falls asleep in the tree.


	4. Chapter 4

He only knows he has fallen asleep in the tree, or even climbed it at all (climbed as opposed to levitation, he is sure, by the scratches on his hands and arms) when morning comes, and with it, the time to start moving again.

 

“Get back down here, boy, the sun came up forever ago!” comes the voice of Alfarinn from directly below him.

 

The sun filters in through the leaves and straight into his eyes. Stiff-limbed as the tree itself and groaning, Nethyn clambers back down. “‘m not a boy,” he mumbles, rubbing sleep out of his eyes when he is finally on the ground.

 

“Girl, then? Ya don’t look much like a girl to me, not with the beard.”

 

Alfarinn is laughing at himself, most likely, and Nethyn’s quick retort does little to quiet him. “It’s not that I am a  _ girl _ , it’s that I am old enough to be your great-great-grandfather, and maybe  _ then _ some.”

 

“How old  _ are _ ya, then? If you don't mind me askin’.”

 

“What's the date?”

 

“Eh…” Alfarinn pauses for some mental calculations. “Twelfth of Rain’s Hand.”

 

Nethyn pauses to let it sink in. “Three hundred and nineteen in about a week, then…”

 

“Really, now?” There is a hint of disbelief to his tone. “You sure don't look that old.”

 

“Believe me. Where I'm from, we call that  _ young _ .”

 

_ Young, in relation to millennia-old sorcerers… Still. Not a boy. _

 

From behind, he can see Alfarinn shaking his head. “I'm sure they do.”

 

_ Humans. Ugh. _

 

By the time he’s back in the carriage, the horse has been fed and Alfarinn is in his seat, ready to go yesterday, it seems. The man is still chuckling about something, and while it grates strongly on Nethyn’s nerves, he makes no further comment. They start off once more and there isn’t much to do other than watch the scenery go by.

 

It’s boring. He’s seen deer before. Like most western things, they lost their shock value after about a month in Cyrodiil.

 

“What about Cyrodiil?” Alfarinn pipes up.

 

“Huh?”

 

“You said somethin’ about it. What, were ya talkin’ and not realizing it?”

 

He isn’t about to put it past himself to have been doing that. He’s talked without noticing before -- his mouth will start moving and his brain will take a few minutes to catch up. An unfortunate affliction, and one he has not yet learned to control. “Maybe.”

  
“So you’ve been, then,” he muses. “What’d someone like you get up to in a place like Cyrodiil?”


	5. Chapter 5

 

> “How do you know so much about the Ayleids?”
> 
> “I don’t,” Nethyn said, taking a knife from his belt and scraping a bit of moss from broken limestone. “I know about their language, and some of their culture, but not much else. Next time we see Hekane, you can ask her.”
> 
> Glancing behind them both, reaching back to have her hand firm on the hilt of her warhammer, the Orc paused, then lowered her voice. “Thinkin’ we should go soon?”
> 
> He looked at her, eyes narrow, and made a deliberate show of securing the moss in his reagent pouch. “Mazoga. Don’t you have something you need to be doing here?”
> 
> “Shit, you're right! The stone!” Not without a stop to ensure Nethyn would be alright if she left him alone, Mazoga dashed off deeper into the ruin.
> 
> The needs of the Chapel of Talos were hardly interesting to him -- in fact, he and Hekane only tagged along for the research potential. They were due back in Vvardenfell soon anyway. There was no time to get caught up in Imperial affairs. Helping this Guild lackey carried the promise of part of the pay, anyhow; who were they to turn down the offer?
> 
> A faint tingling in the back of his head prompted Nethyn to turn around, and he found himself faced with a long, dimly-lit corridor, with an odd cyan glow coming from deeper within. While Mazoga was off fighting ogres, or whatever it was she was meant to do here, Nethyn supposed he could go off and do a bit of exploring alone. Originally he’d intended to just stay here until Hekane returned, but whatever that thing down the hall was, it was radiating magicka like a fire gave off heat. It was pulling him towards it, compelling him, and as he chased the light down it occurred to him to slow down, or turn around.
> 
> Intuition did not win.
> 
> Hekane did.
> 
> “Nethyn!” she whisper-shouted, her low voice echoing off the walls. He stopped in his tracks, and turned his head so she was visible out the corner of his eye. Her red-brown hair was frizzing everywhere and both sleeves had been rolled up to her elbows. “Get back here, will you? I said to wait for me, what are you doing?!”
> 
> He beckoned her over. “You have to come see this!”
> 
> “You’re going to attract ogres if you yell any louder!” Nevertheless, she did join him, and bade him continue. She looked utterly nonplussed by what he had found, by the blue-green crystal in his hands, and by the awed look on his face. “It’s a Welkynd stone. So?”
> 
> Though they were already quite large and prone to drooping, Nethyn’s ears fell a little lower. “I just wanted you to see it.” Hekane turned on her heel and started off in the other direction, and, dismayed, he shoved it into his bag. She wasn’t impressed, but that wouldn’t stop him from looking into it.
> 
> “We’re going,” she said, calling him back.
> 
> “What about Mazoga?”
> 
> “You’re worried about the Orc? She can take care of herself. Come on.”

 

 

* * *

 

Alfarinn whistles. “So, then what? Did you ever see that Orc again?” The morning has dragged on and is left in the wake of late noon. The sun is high in the sky, and as Nethyn’s story ends, they have stopped to water the horse.

 

It isn’t so much like watering plants, though by that particular wording, it’s what Nethyn was expecting.

 

“Mazoga? No. Hekane and I went right back to Vvardenfell, damn the money…” He spits, a habit he is currently in the process of picking up from Alfarinn. It is highly unsanitary, but it does take some emotion off. “Right in time for the Oblivion Crisis. Didn’t see Hekane after that, but last I heard she was apprenticing under a wizard on the mainland.”

 

“Fancy.”

 

“It’s only something you do if you can’t be going off, doing your own thing.”

 

“So a last-resort option?”

 

“Eh, more like biding time. That was how I saw it, anyway.”

 

A tangible silence begins and stretches for the next half hour. What it is is a lot of bumps in the road, the changing foliage as they cross from Eastmarch into Whiterun, the wind of the plains enabling a desperate bid from Nethyn to keep his hair in place. He barely has to put up a struggle to be heard over it. “Alfarinn,” he asks. “How much longer did you say?”

 

Having tied back his own hair, short and thin enough for a simple tie to hold it well, the Nord shrugs and turns somewhat before responding in more detail. “We’ve probably got about another day or so ahead of us if it keeps goin’ smoothly like this. What, didja run out of stories? You had me all invested.” Though he punctuates this complaint with a laugh, he is serious.

 

“You don’t have any of your own?” It’s hard to believe that a man looking to be in his… late thirties, thereabouts… would have nothing interesting to speak of.

 

He snorts. “‘Course I do. I’m saving ‘em for when I’m not focused on the road.”

 

Breathing out in a hiss through his teeth, Nethyn settles back and finally surrenders his hair to the breeze’s will, giving it a helpful push out of his face when needed. He can tell already that Alfarinn is stubborn and will keep up this back-and-forth of who should do the storytelling for as long as he himself can. For a moment he is curious, and puts thought to trying, to seeing just how long they both can go.

 

It’s a fair idea, but he doubts his ability to execute it on such short notice.

 

“Tell me about this… ‘Hekane’,” Alfarinn suggests.

  
Nethyn scowls and scuffs his boot on the carriage floor. “Any _other_ ideas?”


	6. Chapter 6

From behind, Nethyn can see the Nord tapping his chin, humming thoughtfully. “What happened once you left Cyrodiil? Looks like you survived the Crisis well enough.”

 

Nethyn sighs, and knows that Alfarinn could tell immediately that this was a poor choice of topic. However, he also knows that one never gets over things by keeping them bottled up, and no one has ever asked him about it before.

 

The man wants a story. He will have it.

 

“Hekane and I, we’d split up on the way back. She went back to Sadrith Mora, but I was too late coming home. Got stuck in Ald’ruhn when the gates opened. We held out well enough,” he says, biting down fiercely on the inside of his cheek. “For a while.

 

“My father came back for me when he realized I wasn’t going to Recall home. Make no mistake, he was a powerful mage, but…”

 

> He held his own well enough against the Dremora, though mainly on the defensive, knowing well enough that neither stoneflesh nor wards would save him for much longer. His chest aching from exertion and blood pounding in his ears, Nethyn faltered once and suffered for it -- the mighty blow of the Dremora’s blunt mace sent him sprawled in the ash, magicked armor splitting and dispelled by sheer force. 
> 
>  
> 
> His father had long since disappeared from his range of vision, either gone elsewhere or simply gone. There was no time to spend on calling out, on trying to find him, because the hulking humanoid stood above him, about to deliver the killing strike when the mace was wrenched from its grasp by an invisible force.

 

“I took that chance to try and find him, but it started grabbing at me, swiping, like--” He mimes a claw slicing through the air. “I guess a Dremora’s arms are longer than I can run in two seconds.”

 

> A searing pain across the base of his skull blinded him momentarily, sending him once more into the ground -- face first, a scream on his lips, choked by the ash now in his mouth. Blood dribbled out his nose, and among the surrounding noise he heard the  _ shlick  _ of an arrow piercing flesh, the death-roar of the dremora. 
> 
>  
> 
> Someone else had killed it. Were they coming for him? 
> 
>  
> 
> Doubled in his vision was the chitin-clad, helmeted form of whomever had come to his aid, repeatedly looking over one broad shoulder as they hefted him over the other like he weighed nothing.
> 
>  

Right about now is the time Nethyn becomes aware of his pulse racing, and he pauses, takes a few breaths, and gazes out at the moving landscape to keep it in check. He hasn’t been talking for ten minutes, but it feels like a lifetime. “I think I passed out then.”

 

Alfarinn was uncharacteristically silent up until now. “He..."

 

"Died. It would be best if I didn't talk about him -- you would not consider him someone to be missed, I think."

 

"I'm sorry anyways. How'd you survive?"

 

Nethyn purses his lips and worries the bottom one between his front teeth. “Someone who  _ should _ have been using her time better, but decided she wanted to be heroic," he says.

 

> He’d been hauled off, far away from the city, bruises from the pauldron’s hardness forming on his chest and smarting much more than they should. The surrounding walls muffled any noises coming from the outside -- if he could hear them over those on the inside. He was hunched over a table, head on folded arms that clearly he had no part in folding, and occasionally he felt a dull prickling on the back of his neck.
> 
>  
> 
> “...don’ even know ‘ow many healers they got out there, do ya... “
> 
>  
> 
> The voice, probably female but distorted by something held in the mouth of the owner, faded in and out with his consciousness -- never fully gone, but never fully there, either. “I tell ya,  _ we’re  _ dyin’ out there too, friend.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Ack, sorry, I don’t mean t’be so snippy. You hangin’ in there alright?”
> 
>  
> 
> Nethyn weakly grunted his affirmation. His voice wouldn’t come to him.
> 
>  
> 
> “Fantastic. Don’t lift yer head, got it? You’ll pull a stitch and then I’ll hafta do it all again.” Footsteps sounded around the other side of the table, and then so did the scraping of a chair against the floor. “Y’know, I’m shocked you’re not pukin’ blood from getting hit so hard. Mind if I check your ribs in a bit, make sure they’re not broke?” 
> 
>  
> 
> His eyes shot open.
> 
>  
> 
> “Don’t answer, actually. I’m doin’ it anyways.”

 

“I don’t get it,” Alfarinn says. “You’re saying you’d rather go back out with broken ribs than have someone touch ‘em?”

 

He shakes his head and groans, now laying on his side in the carriage. “If you were Dunmer you’d understand -- you don’t ask a Telvanni with no obvious wealth to get naked.”

 

A snort. “Why’s that?”

 

“Because if he can’t risk a slave on experimentation, he’ll turn to kidnapping, or himself. I could have something  _ horrible _ going on under there and you’d be none the wiser, and neither would she.” He waves a hand over his chest for emphasis, though he knows Alfarinn isn’t looking. “ _ Terrible disfigurement. _ Not to say it ever happened to  _ me _ , but you can never be too careful. I was looking out for her best interests.”

 

“But she didn’t leave you alone after that, did she?” He leans his head back, looking up towards the sky momentarily. “Nah, son, I know how nosey healers can get, but they’re just tryin’ ta help. Gotta do their jobs, they do.”

 

“I don’t  _ like  _ nosey. I don’t like pain much, either, but they did turn out to be banged up a bit...”

 

> “Breathe in -- a little deeper, now…” The woman’s deft fingers glided like air over his sternum, down to the bottom ribs, lifting with no hesitation when Nethyn hiccupped out a sob or gasp of pain. “It’s still in place, no worries.” She seemed to be doing well without looking, as he was still face-on-table in his seat, unable to move his neck to give her better access were he lying down. “Looks like it’s just bruised, maybe cracked… You’ll be right out in no time.”
> 
>  
> 
> Finding his voice, he gave the table a quizzical look and then spoke. “Why didn’t you just heal over my neck, then?” 
> 
>  
> 
> She gave his chest another feel, humming quietly, moving right and abruptly stopping. “I don’t like doin’ magic too much. Do it enough an’ it’ll start to do more harm ‘n good.” Poking the side of his chest inquisitively, she came close to shouting when Nethyn grabbed her wrist in response. “Alright, alright! I get it -- enough. You want ‘em fixed, lemme do my work.”
> 
>  
> 
> A warm sensation spread across his lower ribcage, where the fractured bones must have been. He exhaled, sufficiently calmed, albeit for a dull ache that remained. “I want to go back out.”
> 
>  
> 
> “No way. Not until you’re better. ‘Sides, Ald’ruhn’s farther away than you should be walking right now.”

 

Up front, Alfarinn laughs -- for several minutes. Nethyn counts down the seconds before he stops. “So you’re sayin’ this girl just--”

 

“--Dragged me from Ald’ruhn to Gnaar Mok.”

 

“Carried you on her shoulder?! All that way. She was wearing the armor?”

 

“Precisely.” He pauses to reminisce, loathe to correct the lazy smile that begins to appear on his face. “She had some incredible shoulders. Incredible everything. It was like she gave up being one of those… oh, one of those arena fighters out south, just to get into healing.”

 

The cart hits a bump in the road, leading into a series of much smaller ones, shaking Nethyn out of his reverie and annihilating whatever stirring he might have been starting to feel utterly. 

  
_ Gone from nearly going into a fit to getting excited about a woman you haven’t seen in decades. Impressive. _


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the prolonged wait between updates and the fact that this is so short -- other things have been on my mind lately and I kinda lost drive for this fic :/
> 
> Rest assured, however, I'll... try.

In an act of balancing on the part of the situation itself, the rest of the carriage ride goes by largely uneventful. Nethyn is asleep when they stop for good, and still is only fractionally awake when Alfarinn tells him it's time to get off. The cool air does enough to keep him conscious, though he makes the decision to spend as much more of the night as he can asleep again.

 

The walk up to the gates awakens him to the point of finding  _ no  _ point in trying to get back to sleep. The stairs leave him slightly winded, his chest tight, and exhausted despite finally being fully awake. 

 

“City’s closed with the dragons about,” one of the guards informs him. “Official business only.”

 

Nethyn slumps. _All this way for…_

 

“Uhm.” He raises a finger. “Repeat that first part for me, will you?” The guard must be joking, or delusional, or perhaps a little drunk. He turns around for a moment, hoping to see Alfarinn at the stables and get some kind of explanation on what has to be some kind of Nordic in-joke, but he and his carriage are gone now. Just his luck. “ _ Dragons? _ Take off the helmet and look me in the eye, alright?”

 

There must be one ridiculous look on his face, because the guard whose face he can now see is viewing Nethyn like it’s him who must be out of it. “Look, I've never seen one myself either, but the rumors are causing enough panic, and we don't need that spreading or anyone getting hurt. Unless you've got business, you'll have to go somewhere else.” His face is screwy, like it all sounds just as strange to him. 

 

Traveling on the road for so long has left Nethyn in desperation for contact and a less rocking, wooden place to sleep -- he reels at the notion of spending any more time like that. “I can't talk you into letting me in?” he asks, becoming keenly aware of a pout reflex starting to kick in. 

 

“You'd have better luck getting a private audience with the Jarl.”

 

_ The who? _

 

That must be a no. “That would mean I'd be able to enter the city in the first place,” he jokes, hiding any further disappointment. 

 

The scuffing of boots on the stone road takes Nethyn’s mind off his predicament, and even more so when whomever it is that's walking breaks into a sprint right past him. For a second he wants to tell the poor fellow to just turn around, they surely won't let him in, but something a little meaner in him wants to see how it turns out for this one.

 

He leans against a wall and watches, listens. The guard goes through his spiel, but the boy is undeterred. A Bosmer, his white-blonde hair in a long and high ponytail, he stands much shorter than the man before him, but carries himself like as much of a man in spite of his uneven voice and gangly limbs.

 

“I have… word from…Helgen,” he pants. It looks like he's been going for a while. “Totally demolished. Everything’s burnt down, there’s been a dragon, flew right over Riverwood…”

 

The guards let him in. With little more than a warning, that they would be keeping their eye on him, they let him in.

 

Nethyn was fuming.

  
If only he had known beforehand, that this was the key to entering Whiterun… It doesn't matter, he assures himself. There are many ways in and out of any given settlement that need only be searched for. With that in mind, he continues down the road, keeping note of the wall structure and the patrol patterns of the guards. A strong invisibility spell would negate the need for the latter, but he is always prepared for failure.


	8. Chapter 8

> “I don't understand.” Lying on his side, testing the flexibility of his stitches, Nethyn reached out and waved the woman over. With the proper form of a high-class lady, though her speech reflected a much different upbringing, she smoothed her skirt out and sat on the cot beside him. “Was I just the first person you saw, or what?”
> 
>  
> 
> She paused in bringing her hand to his hair, silently asking permission and absently threading her fingers through upon his consent. “First salvageable one,” she corrected. 
> 
>  
> 
> The implication brought about all manner of unpleasant mental images. “You shot the thing?”
> 
>  
> 
> “Nah. I'm no good with a bow, I'd just as soon shoot myself as any target.” Soon both hands were flitting about in Nethyn’s hair, making temporary braids here and there. He chalked her behavior up to self-therapy. 
> 
>  
> 
> It was calming enough for him as well, and so he didn't complain. “...Thank you,” he finally said. 
> 
>  
> 
> “Don't mention it.” She removed both hands from his head, letting her own hair down -- the white-blonde of it stood in contrast to her skin, and now that Nethyn had a better look at her face, he could make out some distinctly non-Dunmeri features. She shook it out and gave him a wide, toothy grin, exposing awkwardly long canines that must have accounted for her lisp.
> 
>  
> 
> To Nethyn, they indicated much more than a simple speech impediment.

 

He certainly feels like a vampire: hiding under cover of night, taking, however little, from a place that doesn't want him for his own good. Nighttime in Skyrim, he knows, is dangerous. More so with the supposed dragons. He needs this. 

 

Whiterun’s gates are closed off, guards posted at both towers on either end of the city, but no one has seen him yet. A denizen of the night he is not, but for as well as he blends in, he might pass for one.

 

Perched on top of the city wall, invisible and still as the wind, Nethyn observes the passers by. It is only the occasional guard or sleepless citizen, and the gaps of time inbetween are eventually enough for him to grossly underestimate his distance from the ground and swallow a scream that has its roots in the ankle he has landed on.

 

It isn't broken, only sore and likely sprained. Regardless, he has to keep moving before someone comes by and questions where he came from. He has no idea what the layout of the city is like, aside from that he seems to have entered just inside the gates, and he can only tell that the blacksmith is a blacksmith by the forge and not the sign. The sign is in a language he can't hope to read: odd runes and claw-marks, these must signify the blacksmith -- but where will that knowledge get him?

 

_ To a blacksmith. _

 

_ Fuck off! _

 

Putting as little weight as possible on his left leg, Nethyn limps out into the street, utterly lost. A warm light glows in the windows of a larger building further into the city, whereas all the rest are dim or dark. He takes it as a good sign, a welcoming sign, and sets off in that direction.

 

Coming from the same place is the boy from earlier, sporting armor he hadn't been wearing before, and a bow hilted to his lower back. He pauses a moment, giving Nethyn no reason to pause himself but still getting the same reaction, and gives him an uncomfortably cursory glance.

 

“Weren't you that guy at the gate?” He asks. “How'd the guards let  _ you _ in?” It's not a haughty tone the boy uses; it's curious, a verbal scratch of the chin while his hands are busy with a map and satchel.

 

Nethyn only shrugs. “I suppose I convinced them. Where are you going? Isn't it late for…” He looks at the bag, trying to ascertain what might be inside. “Treasure-hunting?” 

 

_ That should have come out less condescending, _ he thinks. The boy slouches for half a second, then overly compensates in correcting his posture, like he's offended him somehow.

 

“ _ Actually, _ ” he says, like a little kid who’s been told that they are in charge of something. “I'm on an important retrieval mission for the Jarl.” Whether he’s aware of it or not, he puffs out his chest.

 

_ Retrieval. Uh-huh.  _

 

“A job for mercenaries, not children, don't you think?” 

 

“I'm twenty-seven!”

 

It's all Nethyn can do to disengage from furthering this boy’s adult delusions. It's really none of his business who this Jarl-person he's been hearing about decides to send on retrieval missions -- odds are they are themselves a human, with a tragically young concept of adulthood -- but this boy looks like he can't even hold the bow he wields properly. 

 

And far be it from him to assume he is a mage.

 

“Fine, then,” Nethyn concedes, limping around him and getting just a bit closer to the lighted windows. “Mister  _ Twenty-Seven _ .” That  _ is _ how they address each other out here, right? He huffs, and tries to ignore the piercing gaze on his back as he walks away.

 

Convince himself, that he is not concerned for the welfare of someone he’s only just met.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's mostly flashback -- sorry it took so long to update! School's started again, but I will find time for this.

> “Step. Away. Now.” Despite being the one asking, Nethyn scooted away from the woman, then hit his chest on the table corner by accident. She was quick to silence his scream then, cold palm pressed up against his mouth, grey-off-white face right up next to his and looking rather frightened.
> 
>  
> 
> “Hush, you,” she hissed. “You think if I was gonna hurt’cha at all I’d’ve gotten your sorry hind outta Ald’ruhn?” Once satisfied that he wasn't about to jerk away further and hurt himself more, she removed her hand and clasped both in front of herself, studying his terrified and infuriated expression. “No Telvanni’s afraid of a vampire, I thought.” She flashed her fanged grin once more. “So what's yer deal?”
> 
>  
> 
> Nethyn paused, giving legitimate thought to his next words. “I want to know how you kept it together with all the blood around.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Oh, hon.” Her look softened and turned to her hands. “I've been around for a long time. Been taking care of people since I had a heartbeat. Blood don't bother me anymore.” She hummed, strolled around so she was now behind Nethyn, and pushed his hair aside to examine his stitches. “Looks like you haven't pulled any, that's good.”
> 
>  
> 
> He found himself becoming more at ease, knowing this vampire wasn't about to hurt him, and had apparently managed to quash her innate bloodlust to some extent. Not like he fully believed that last part, though -- nature was inescapable. She would eventually need it, and the thought of a vampire willfully starving herself to such an extent was worrisome. How well was she handling it at this very moment, where the only prey in sight was injured and risked further injury with every move?
> 
>  
> 
> “Name’s Evesaes, by the way. Andrano. Call me Ev, if ya like.”
> 
>  
> 
> “...Nethyn.” He took her outstretched hand, subconsciously tracing over the thin calluses by each bony knuckle. It was nearly wider than his own. Her eyes were slanted and narrow, warm enough to detract from the chill of her skin. Taking in the rest of her face, which veered toward the masculine end of androgyny, Nethyn felt strangely attracted--
> 
>  
> 
> _ Seduction!  _ shrieked the gravelly little voice of his conscience.  _ Stop looking at her, idiot! Do you want her to bite you, or worse? _
> 
>  
> 
> He glanced to the side. Soon it became clear that Evesaes had no intention to enthrall him, or do anything expected of her kind -- she cocked a brow in confusion and tilted his head up by the chin, gentle, looking between his eyes instead of into them.
> 
>  
> 
> “Didn't scare you, did I, Neth?”
> 
>  
> 
> The problem was with him. He  _ wanted _ to look at her. “No, no. Not at all…” He stifled a yawn.
> 
>  
> 
> She smiled and released him, inclining her head to a mat in the nearby corner. “Go ‘n sleep, then. Lookin’ a bit like you need it, you.”
> 
>  
> 
> Though the idea of sleep appealed to him greatly, Nethyn did not feel like moving one inch all of a sudden. He simply laid his head back down on the table. “I'll sleep fine here,” he said, only for Evesaes to click her tongue on the roof of her mouth and kneel, working both arms beneath his legs and backside to effortlessly lift him.
> 
>  
> 
> Sleepily, he mused, “You’re very strong…”
> 
>  
> 
> She hummed, laying him down to rest on the mat. 

 

Warm light filters in through his lashes, stinging his eyes and planting a vicegrip on his brain. Changing position does nothing to alleviate his pain -- the light is coming from all sides. He likens it to a hangover and rolls over onto his stomach, burying his face in a semi-comfortable cot.

 

“Oh, good,” says an airy voice. With regret and curiosity, Nethyn lifts his head and twitches an oversized ear on reflex.  _ That voice… _ It sounds familiar, but far too boyish to match his memories. The accent is all wrong, too. “You’re  awake!”

 

Finally he opens his eyes a fraction. He takes in the Nordic architecture, the light, the odd stout statue at the forefront of this large room. The woman in yellow robes tending to the wounds of a man in scant armor. The otherwise uncomfortable, yet giddily smiling face of none other than an unchanged Evesaes Andrano.

  
“Mornin’, Ev…” is all he can come up with. In his bleary-minded state, it’s his best. “I got questions.”


	10. Chapter 10

“I don't think I've  _ ever  _ seen you like that, Neth. At least, not since Blacklight.” She strokes his head in her lap, hood pulled up to avoid the light as best she can without suspicion. “I was gonna stop you, honest, but I didn't think you'd recognize me.”

 

Pouting, concerned, Nethyn quirks a brow and burrows his nose a little further into her waist. It isn't as soft as he remembers. “So what'd I do?”

 

The silence, at the very least from Evesaes, is downright penetrating. “You got in a fight with Uthgerd -- merc, I think. I never talked to her -- n’ she just… oh, I thought she’d cracked your skull or somethin’.” Her voice wavers. “You just went totally stiff and then it was like someone’d just taken all your bones out.”

 

He stays silent. His vague memories of the event include an armored fist near and in his face, but they stop there.

 

“I told them it wasn't anything to worry about, other than just… y’know, getting your head looked at -- I know you have your episodes -- but these Nords, eh… they're a real superstitious lot. Like it is back home.”

 

“Ev,” he says carefully. “You don't think I've got the daedra in me, do you?”

 

“Nethyn, hon, there's no more daedra in you than there is in any other Dunmer.” Pausing, then deciding it best to add to her reassurance, she continues. “Which is to say some, but not the bad ones.” She turns his face skyward and kisses his cheek. “You're not possessed. Promise. Absolute  _ worst,  _ you've shown them you can't take a punch.”

 

“Absolute worst, I'm always ten seconds away from getting run out of the damn city!” He lowers his voice -- no one is supposed to know he shouldn't be here. Tears start forming in his eyes, and the light doesn't hurt any less. He can't imagine what it must be like for Evesaes, especially in such an environment in the first place. She is old, likely lived amongst people for a very long time, so he doesn't doubt her stealth out here in the open -- it's the others he is wary of.

 

She continues stroking his hair, murmuring nothings at him. “No one’s gonna touch you.” He begins to tremble as if ill. “No one’s gonna touch you,” she repeats. “I'm gonna stay here until they're sure you're okay, alright?”

 

“Don't leave me again.”

 

Becoming silent all of a sudden, Evesaes stills her hand and sighs. It's  _ that _ sigh, he knows: the ‘don't you give me that’ sigh. Nethyn is poised and ready to take it back, to claim he'd only asked that of her in a brief fit of helplessness, when she gives him a closed-mouth smile. “I'm living south of here. I'd feel better knowing you're safe, so…”

 

He almost can't believe it. As he looks up at her, wide-eyed and expecting clarification, a priestess comes back to check on him.

 

Evesaes steps away.

 

She looks at his eyes, checks their responsiveness -- he proves that he can still speak and is more or less in his right mind. He asks if he is okay to leave, and she looks at Ev.

 

“You're with her?” she asks.

 

_ Her. _

 

He feels his face and there is no beard, naught but a stubbly trace of facial hair. Evesaes looks at the woman funny, and then him -- why hadn't she told him? “Him,” she corrects, looking confused. “Nethyn, you shaved last night?”

 

He doesn't remember, but nods.

 

“Yeah, he's with me.” She returns to him, extending a hand and helping him sit up. “C’mon. We’ll get breakfast and we’ll go. Thank you,” she says to the woman. Once more, she doubts his legs enough to lift him, and he doesn't complain.

 

“I know it's none of my business, but I think you should let the beard grow back out. The one you had in Blacklight,  _ goodness. _ ” She can't fan herself, so she settles on lifting up her jaw and smiling. 

 

Nethyn reaches up to adjust her hood for her, shielding her face from the terrible sunlight. “Yeah… do I really look that much like a woman without it?”

 

As he shifts his weight in the direction away from the market -- he is entirely the opposite of hungry, but she insists on the grounds that he’ll be hungry and whining about it later -- Evesaes mulls over her response. “Not to me. But humans are weird about that kinda thing, they can't tell male from female outside their own race.”

 

“Watch them try to sex an Argonian.”

 

“It's the males that have horns, right?”

 

“No, females too. My old neighbors--” Taking note of the way Evesaes’ face hardens at his almost-remark, he stops. “Sorry. I know you and your brother, ah… how is he?”

 

_ Stupid question to ask a vampire, isn't it? _

 

She only shrugs. “Deformed, dead, desiccated wherever I dumped him on Vvardenfell, I can't remember.” Her flippant attitude towards the matter shocks Nethyn more than the news. She'd always spoken to him of her twin with such love that until now, he had thought he was still alive somehow. “Doesn't matter. He'd be dead now anyways.”

 

“You've not tried to contact him?” 

 

The pair of them walking (or, only Evesaes walking) draws some attention, and suddenly Nethyn finds himself worrying about the gates -- nobody is getting in or out, so say the guards.

 

“He never got buried proper -- how could I? Dragging that body back to the city… it would've caused one hell of a panic.”

 

“Corprus.” The word is final and bitter on his tongue. It smarts of foul memory. Evesaes nods. “He didn't suffer long?”

 

She gets a distant look in her eyes, and is silent right up to the city gates.

 

This gives Nethyn ample time to think -- while they walk, while she puts him down to get the massive doors open. While he insists on helping, so the task is not entirely on her to accomplish.

 

What happened to her, in these past fifty years? The woman he'd known in Blacklight was cheerful but not thoughtless, intelligent, while retaining her sense of humor. She wouldn't have taken such an attitude about her brother. She never worried then, even looking back on the century-and-a-half old wreckage of home every night that he brought her to the shoreline, so what happened to her?

 

> “Hey, knock it off!” Laughing, Nethyn pushed Evesaes away from his neck, letting her get only so much as a lick in before his hands were on her shoulders and shoving. “I won't even hesitate!”
> 
>  
> 
> She stuck her pointed tongue out at him, then laid her head down on his stomach. He was always so sensitive about having her near his heart, and this was the next best spot to listen for a pulse. It would rile her up, she knew, but if that wasn't what Nethyn was looking for… “Hesitate to what, now?”
> 
>  
> 
> He wove his fingers through her hair -- it was soft, Altmeri soft, almost silky had it not died and dulled with the rest of her. “Oh, you know,” he trailed off, waving his free hand about. “Vampires can't swim, can they?”
> 
>  
> 
> “I can swim just fine.” Or had he not seen her just last week? “You'd drown me, then.”
> 
>  
> 
> “In an instant if you bit me there.”
> 
>  
> 
> “So I won't.” She giggled, disappearing under his shirt and nipping at his hip. The warmth of his skin and the faint scent of blood hit her immediately, but as she became bold enough to go lower, he pulled her back up. “Too soon?” she asked.
> 
>  
> 
> “Unless you wanted me, but I'm really not in the mood.” Exhaling a heavy sigh as she sunk her fangs into a small vessel in his side, he stroked he shell of her ear and closed his eyes. The neck was tried-and-true, but the both of them knew well enough what would drive the other past reasonable self-control. 
> 
>  
> 
> Upon finishing, a semblance of color returned to her face, and the beautiful shine back to her hair. Her eyes had returned somewhat to their yellowy orange, and once more she returned to eye level on the bed with him.
> 
>  
> 
> “I'm going to Cyrodiil,” she told him.
> 
>  
> 
> “How long?”
> 
>  
> 
> “In about a month--”
> 
>  
> 
> “No, no,” Nethyn interrupted. “For how long?”
> 
>  
> 
> Jaw set, she paused and thought. “I dunno. I have things there that need doin’.”
> 
>  
> 
> His reaction was instant. “I want to go with you.”
> 
>   
>  “You can't.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's kind of short -- also please forgive any formatting errors as I am uploading this on mobile and mobile sucks. To the people reading and/or leaving comments/kudos: thank you! I appreciate it.

Two different guards are on duty this morning (though it is late morning, the sun is nearly at its highest point). Nethyn finds his legs to be far sturdier than they must have been before, and convinces Evesaes that he most certainly can walk, thank you very much. The guards are still in a daze by the time they're descending the stairs.

He doesn't blame her in the least for her worry. He will never see himself collapse as she had but he can imagine the shock. As sick as he must be (after all, if he supposedly isn't possessed, that must be the only other reason) the sun feels good on his skin and he is reminded that he’s gotten so little of it lately. The freckles on his cheeks and nose are fading, his skin has become much paler than it was in Sadrith Mora. When he voices his worry to Evesaes, she laughs and joins him in half-jokingly mourning their lost marks.

They opt out of the carriage for now. They opt out of travel and instead take a walk. It's been far too long.

“How long have you been here?” Nethyn finally asks. Though Evesaes is a head taller than him, he doesn't look up to speak to her.

She fixes her eyes on the road. “Twenty years, about.”

“Did you come straight from Cyrodiil?”

“No, no.” Eyes cast to the side, though she keeps walking straight, Evesaes makes it abundantly clear that this isn't something she enjoys talking about. “I spent about ten years in the Marsh, then here.”

Nethyn huffs and takes a seat gingerly on a stone wall remnant. His head is beginning to pound with the precursor to a migraine, and the sun does little to help. Evesaes, ever restless, paces in front of him without taking her eyes off him.

She is concerned. He knows.

“I'm fine,” is his answer to an unspoken question. “Really.”

It's obvious that she doesn't believe him, but what can he do? Despite his sickness, or spiritual weakness, or whatever -- though for the long time they have known each other, she has only seen him suffer it once and in a far less jarring fashion -- he presses on and considers himself a product of that. He survives, but she doesn't believe him.

The breeze blows between them, and for a while that is the only sound. Nethyn slowly shifts to his side, laying there despite the discomfort, because at the very least it takes his attention off the budding pain in his head and back. Evesaes joins him, ankles crossed and hands on her knees as she sits. Minutes pass and it is only them, the wind, and the farm creatures across the road.

“I missed you,” she finally says. “When I heard about the eruption, I--” her voice hitches and forces her to leave off the sentence there, to begin again. “I didn't know if you'd gone back to Vvardenfell.”

It strikes him now that he should have at least written. “I stayed in Blacklight, right up ‘til the Nords gave us Solstheim. Mostly I just kept to Tel Mithryn, but… y’know.”

“I know what?”

“One can only be within ten meters of Master Neloth for so long without fearing for his life.” He cracks a smile. “Sadrith Mora was fine enough, there was more to it than a single tower, but I would rather have shared living space with Dratha.”

Evesaes laughs, in the way one does when they don't know what the joker means but feels they must laugh either way. “Never knew ‘er,” she says.

“Neither did I, but I think she would have liked you, had you been one of ours.” He pauses. “Or hated you. I'm not sure.”

Her face hardens a fraction, but she takes the comment in stride. “Not like it matters much now, right?”

“Or ever.”

“Yeah.”

Thunder booms overhead, though the sky is perfectly clear.


	12. Chapter 12

She’s a little too close for comfort in the carriage. Moving on anything other than her own legs is nervewracking at best, especially when accompanied by two other people (there is a Breton man sitting across from them, short and noble-looking with the exception of a minor cleft lip), but she looks much too calm to be at all anxious. Vampires are not prone to the same sleep patterns as mortal men and women -- she is not tired, but her head is still at rest on his shoulder, a warm, lazy smile on her face.

“Do you mind,” whispers Nethyn, leaving no room for an answer as to whether or not Evesaes actually minded.

She raises her head and pushes out her bottom lip. “You can get all up on my lap, but I still can't do the same to you?”

“It's called ‘personal space’, Ev; my bubble just happens to only give when I make it.” He gives her pouted lip a playful tap, she snaps at his finger. They laugh together, at each other and themselves.

“Hypocrite.” Though the connotation is bitter, it only masks her continued laughter. “You keep changing the ‘personal space’ rules on me.”

“Well, if you’re gonna be a brat about it…”

The man huffs, shooting both of them a glare and wordlessly interrupting their conversation. Seemingly satisfied now that they have stopped talking, he turns back to the novel open in his lap.

They continue in whispers, switching into Dunmeris, to spite him.

For Nethyn, it's like flipping a switch. It is a relief to speak freely and without linguistic restraint -- though his grasp on Cyrodiilic is strong enough, he can never exactly convey himself with it.

“What an absolute cock, right? The man can't mind his own business! I have half a mind to show him what’s what, and I would if this weren't such a damned small space!” Still, he restricts his nonverbal speech from his arms, partially to demonstrate just how little space he has to properly gesticulate.

On the other hand, Evesaes looks utterly bewildered, like she's searching for something to say in response. They communicated well enough before, despite their differences in upbringing and dialect, but now is a different beast. “Slow down,” she says carefully, in what Nethyn sorrowfully notes is a partially lost understanding of the Bitter Coast tongue. “All you wizards talk too fast.”

“What I'm saying is that man there needs to mind his own business, don't you think?” He slows his speech down drastically, but he only gets a look of slightly better comprehension.

“I do.”

Once again he is struck with the anxiety of knowing he's made her uncomfortable. To apologize, he leans his head to the side and invites her back over. The transition back to Cyrodiilic makes him stutter and stumble over his words, but if it would better their conversation to do it… “Sorry, about that.”

The Breton clears his throat. “Some of us are trying to read,” he says, condescending. At the very least he had enough respect to wait until their conversation ended.

“Some of us are trying to keep the peace here, too.”

“And some of us would really like it if there wasn't any threatening on this carriage.” The driver, silent up until now, quieted the two men with simply a tone.

From her resting spot on Nethyn’s shoulder, Ev smirks.

_What a damn pacifist. What irony._


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one is slightly NSFW, just be warned.

That night comes with a resurgence in Nethyn’s back pain. He wraps both legs around Evesaes, clings to her as she sleeps, and it eases the pain by some small amount. Though she sleeps now, he can see her ears alert, nose twitching, fangs peeking out behind her partly-open lips. He rubs a spot on his waist, where she might normally bite him (and it will come to that soon, he thinks) and realizes they are days from Falkreath and will have no privacy.

Facing the soreness again, Nethyn releases his full-bodied grip and gently shakes her. “Ev,” he whispers. “Ev, wake up?”

She moans, rubs her eyes, looks at him with only slightly thinner pupils than yesterday. “What?”

“You're going again.” Briefly, he cants his head sidewards and exposes his neck. “You can't feel it?”

“Can we not do this here…?”

“How long has it been?” Now he begins to try and drag her off the carriage, away from the threat of potentially awakening witnesses. “This isn't healthy. At all.”

Though not without a stern, sleepy look, she gives in and joins him a few metres away, at the crossroads. She can see his face just fine in the dim light -- he doesn't look half as womanlike as he feared before (and for a moment, she wonders: why fear it?) -- and she struggles to come to grips with the fact that this boy wants her to feed off him.

Maybe he wants to become a vampire himself, and has a fundamental misunderstanding of how the transmission works. Perhaps he's disguising this desire as help, for both her and the men in the cart.

Whatever it is, she won't turn down an offer.

It is odd that he lowers his collar instead of laying back and lifting his shirt, like last time, but she makes no comment. Shrouded from sight, she leans in to the crook of his neck, kissing the surprisingly soft skin and giggling as his breath hitches. One hand on his shoulder and the other lifting his hair for easier access, Evesaes lets her fangs drop and hastily finds the strongest point of his pulse. His skin turns warmer, and she doesn't have to look to know that his face has flushed -- she understands now and is entirely unsurprised. Distracted by the scent and taste of blood (it’s different this time, his blood is thinner and the pressure is down), she swears she feels some kind of charge in the air -- incoming thunderstorm, maybe? -- but she doesn't notice something prodding against her thigh.

She isn't all that hungry, but she knows how long the ride will be -- much shorter than her trip up to Whiterun, she'd been walking, but still long and now accompanied by too many people to convince that nothing happened. She goes until he breathlessly tells her to stop, and when she looks at him again, his face is pale but his eyes are still half-lidded, voice low, grinning like a cat.

“We’ve got the rest of the night,” Nethyn says, like it's some evil plan he's referring to. He leans in again, chuckles, and rubs his cheek on her shoulder. He’s delirious, she notes.

And then Evesaes notices the odd stiffness against her leg.

She gently pushes him away, catching him as he stumbles. “You need sleep,” she chides.

“And you.” Even on flat terrain he manages to lose his footing, grabbing onto her forearms. He gazes up with the hazy eyes of a man who has been simultaneously drained of blood and given a dance by a generously endowed woman -- not entirely in his right mind.

At least the first part is accurate.

Evesaes laughs and guides him back to the carriage. “You’re delirious, hon.” She should have known that biting him there would get this kind of reaction, but if he didn't want the usual place, there had to be a better reason than just trying to mess around with her. In retrospect, she should have stopped upon realizing how strange his blood tasted. “C’mon, you'll feel awful if you don't rest a lil’.”

Begrudgingly he clambers back in, needing some help from Ev in his dizzy state, and digs a slice of apple and some bread out of their pouch. He knows enough about losing blood to have his priorities straight, even if they needed a little prodding first, and chews as quietly as possible while everyone else sleeps.

He feels ill, but only for a moment -- and besides, he reasons, it’s normal to be sick after blood loss. It would be strange if he felt fine at all!

He crosses one leg over the other and drifts off with not a single thought in his head save for the sting in his neck.

When he wakes up, it is long past morning -- Evesaes is practically in his face, eyes wide like a puppy and surreptitiously feeling his neck. “You okay?” she whispers. “I might've gotten… carried away last night. Real low chance, but…”

He waves her away. “I'm fine. I'm not burning up and I don't feel any more drawn toward you than I did before.” He smiles, kisses her nose, and pulls her hood further over her eyes.

The man has his nose in the book again, and pays them no mind.


	14. Chapter 14

It takes Nethyn longer than usual to recover from that night. The next day, he is still dizzy, and too nauseous to eat much more than he had that night; there are little blinking lights in his vision. The day after that, they are nearing Falkreath, and the lights have dimmed down to black dots. The driver and Evesaes are forced to get involved when Nethyn’s temper flares and he has a go at the man, but his offset equilibrium takes good enough care of him.

Evesaes later asks him how he feels, yet again, and if he’s having problems healing over the bite naturally.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you still smell like you did the other night.”

Nethyn absently rubs the side of his neck, and when his fingers come back slightly bloody, he bites his lip. “This doesn't happen,” he says plainly. On the outside, he is the image of mild, temporary concern. Inside, as he knows that Evesaes can tell, his heart begins to pound and a nervous sweat beads on his hairline. This doesn't happen. Maybe to some people, but it's never happened to him. Inside, he panics.

_Perhaps the timing was wrong. Environmental factors. You're stressed. You're..._

He crosses his arms lightly over his chest, tries to play it cool. “It's fine, Ev.” It's not. “They'll stop soon enough.” He crosses his legs at the knee, and deflects Evesaes’ curious look.

“I'm keeping an eye on you.” This is no threat, or a warning, but a promise -- they both know the early symptoms of porphyric hemophilia, and even showing only one is cause enough to worry. Evesaes pulls him close as they near a town road, and the carriage stops.

The man remains as the two depart, strolling into Falkreath.

“You live here?” Nethyn asks.

She keeps leading him through, making brief passing conversation with men and women she must know. Asking how are you, how’s the family, any luck with the men lately, and, no, he's just a friend who’s visiting. Houses are, for the most part, all above shops in some fashion -- being familiar with the concept, it's something Nethyn can appreciate. Evesaes makes a hard right into one with a sign indicating the alchemist. “Just gotta pick something up for Volaris,” she says. He hasn't heard her refer to her niece by name yet (he assumes, anyway, that Volaris is her niece) and enters with her.

“Morning, Zaria,” Evesaes calls out, catching the attention of the woman at the alchemy table.

She lifts her head and turns, her dark hair bounces briefly against her back as she grins. “If it isn't… oh, you, get over here!” The two women embrace each other in a friendly hug, leaving Nethyn to awkwardly scuff his boot on the wooden floor. Zaria claps Evesaes on the back, laughs with her, then turns to Nethyn. “So, is he why I haven't been seeing you for the past three weeks?” she jokingly chides.

“ _Hu-uuush!_ ” Evesaes snaps. She waves Nethyn over. “This’s Nethyn, Zar. I wasn't expectin’ to meet him in Whiterun, I just… did. Y’know?”

He gives her a nervous smile and wave. “Hello.”

Zaria beams. “He's adorable, Ev.” Then, to Nethyn: “What are you doing with your hair to get it that long? It's gorgeous. The liveliest thing I've seen in Falkreath,” she adds. When he blushes, she laughs, and gives Evesaes her full attention. “You didn't just stop by to say hello, did you?” Her remark is accusatory, though not at all annoyed.

Strolling over to the counter and leaning against it, casual as ever, Evesaes cracks a smile and watches Zaria finish her work with intent. Nethyn follows and copies, mimicking her down to the placement of his elbow on the countertop.

“Volaris needed me to pick up somethin’ for the foxes,” she says. Zaria looks at her with something that, for a second, Nethyn perceives to be a kind of understanding.

What was procured from behind the counter, once Zaria was finished with her workspace, looked enough like poison, smelled foul enough as it was passed from one hand to another, and was deftly tucked away into a pocket so Evesaes could count out coin.

He'd seen foxes, once or twice in Cyrodiil. Skittish little doglike creatures that constantly fascinated the hell out of him.

“Why would you kill them?” he asks as they leave, the shop and then Falkreath itself. Home must be further out than the carriage would take them. “The foxes, I mean.”

“They're pests,” Evesaes says plainly. “They spook the goats and kill the chickens.”

Nethyn huffs. “Why these people haven't domesticated them yet… they're cute and clever.”

“They're fowl killers.”

“Pun intended?”

“You bet.”

It's about another half hour’s walk to Volaris’ house, mostly spent in silence, with intervals of “Is it done bleeding?” and then a pause, then, “No.”

With the lake and the large house in sight, Nethyn clings to Evesaes’ arm, suffering another return of his backaches. “We’ll get you into bed in just a second,” Ev murmurs. Before she can knock on the door, they are both greeted by the bleats of goats, and when she does, they are met by a tiny, young-looking Dunmer.

Her light brown hair is pulled in a messy ponytail, her clothes are neat if a little skewed on her soft body, and her eyes are pale and unfocused. Nethyn is too distracted by squinting at her and fighting off the dizziness to hear what she and Evesaes are saying to each other, but soon he is guided inside, into the entryway.

Where he promptly collapses onto a bench, folded upon himself, and lets the dull ache overtake him to the point of vomiting on the floor.

Beyond the noise of his heart racing in his hears is Volaris shouting something to someone (surely not Evesaes -- the voice that responds is very unfamiliar) and a bucket is shoved beneath his tear-blinded eyes as another set of hands raises him into sitting. He retches rather unproductively until he's certain it's stopped. A body lacking in any kind of heat is there when he topples sideways, and Evesaes’ face is above his when he opens his eyes.

Her own are slitted, contrasting the friendly, sad look on her face.

“I'm so sorry,” he hoarsely whispers, then breaks down again into her shirt.

She leads him upstairs, holding her breath. When they reach a bedroom that looks entirely unclaimed, she sits him down on the bed and reassures him that it isn't a problem, all the while stroking his back through the hiccups.

“You got a change of clothes, hon?”

The look in her eyes is all at once terrified, sympathetic, and predatory.

“It's okay,” she says, after a moment’s silence. _Every minute in here_ , Nethyn thinks, _is torture for her, probably._ “You know you're with friends.”

He does know.

He calmly asks her to leave him the fuck alone.

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said this would be done sometime this week.
> 
> guess what, it's still sometime this week. fuck the flu, I do what I want.


	15. Interlude: Dragon Rising

Aranni breathes in and out, inhales ragged breaths as he crawls out of the barrow. His left forearm, caught in a trap that he thought he’d managed to disarm only hours ago, throbs in odd places. He can't look, won't look. The stone tablet is safe in his bag, a great many voices resonating, pounding, in his head.

Above him, the night sky glows with the faint aurora, the two moons hanging up high. He takes in the cold air until it's fully replaced the staleness of the ruin, stinging in his throat and lungs.

He's alive. Awful sore, but alive.

His mind turns back to the task at hand: returning the dragonstone to Farengar Secret-Fire. He stumbles, saves himself before he topples off the ledge, and stares out once again at the outline of Whiterun, and Dragonsreach.

Damp with sweat and blood -- not all his -- he takes himself down the mountain with extreme care.

The feeling of eyes on his back follows him nearly everywhere he goes.

Aranni’s arm goes completely numb, or maybe he's gone completely numb to it, halfway into his journey back. He still doesn't look, half out of fear that it won't look like an arm anymore, and half out of desire to just keep going. Stopping for anything will stop him indefinitely.

A rumbling noise overhead sets him on alert, thrusting him momentarily back into Helgen.

_No stopping. No stopping_.

The voices from the barrow echo: _Fus, Fus, Fus_.

The ground is too solid to give, but in his head, it does anyway.

I saw it! yelled the old woman. I saw a dragon! It flew right over the barrow!

Aranni does what he swore he wouldn't. He stops.

He stops, because the fear of the dragon isn't overcoming him.

He stops, just shy of the stables, then looks at the watchtower and can swear he saw a shadow fly past, somewhere behind it.

_Dragonstone first_.

He forces himself into continuing his stride. Up the stairs, through the gates, whipping out the heavy stone with his good arm and brandishing it as a right of entry.

All the way to Dragonsreach.

And as he enters, he hears another distant roar.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the month wait. moving is a bitch, this is short, I just wanted to have something done. thank you for keeping up with this!

Staring at himself at an odd angle in the mirror, he directs his fury into his craft, drawing invisible lines across his jaw and upper lip like a painter. There is no reason for him to not be flashy with it now; Evesaes knows now that he never shaved that night, Volaris is mortal and blind, Rayya has her own concerns. Mostly regarding Volaris, who is something the Nords call a thane, and the woman Rayya is sworn to protect, or something like that.

He pulls both fingertips past his jawline and what looks and feels like coarse, scratchy hair follows to a short length before stopping. A simple application of generative restoration magic and a minor illusion to give the appearance of something a little more male than he could naturally possess.

He is alone in the spare bedroom, with plenty of time to himself, and the sun filtering through the leaves into the window. As his face becomes something he can stand to look at once more, Nethyn heaves a sigh and starts to work on the less obvious details. Eyebrows need to be squared, all that needs is a blade. With a flick of the small razor on the table before him, the tapered ends are blunted, and the gaps filled in with kohl, then slicked down with a fingertip.

Taking in his first full breath in a while, now unrestrained by secrecy or shame, Nethyn falls off the chair and into bed. He knows very well that when he walks downstairs, no one will judge him. No one but himself, and maybe Rayya, in secret. Evesaes called him down for tea a while ago, but the pain calmed by then.

There are still things that need seeing to.

He pulls his shirt up over his head and examines himself entirely. The way he'd deemed proper to fix his body’s mistakes, to atone for unavoidable transgressions, still left its mark; he takes a long cloth strip from the bed and pulls it so the remaining breast lies flat against a warped chest. Evesaes warned him of the dangers if he continued this way--

\-- _but what does_ she _know of it?_

The shirt is on again, his breaths shallow and stomach-centered, and he makes for the stairs.

“Hey!” exclaims Evesaes. “Look who’s awake.” She approaches, slowly, as if to a frightened and injured animal. “How’re you feeling?” she asks, quiet as she can.

“As terrible as you would expect.” His voice comes out flatter than he means it to, but the sentiment remains the same. “My stomach is knotting up again, chest’s killing me, and my ankles feel like they're going to give if I stand up much longer -- can I sit down? How do I look?”

She guides him into a wooden chair at the table, where Rayya and Volaris are finishing lunch, and takes his jaw in her hands. “Handsome as ever,” she tells him. “It's a little dark under your lip, but I don't think anyone’s gonna get close enough to-- no, don't give me that look, now.”

_She still looks nice._

_Where have_ you _been?_

Nethyn’s face softens; it must, because Evesaes is smiling again and sits down beside him. “How’s the medicine working, Riz?”

“Well enough,” Volaris says with her mouth half full. Rayya gives her a glance that she doesn't see, then gives her cheek a firm tap, as if a mother chastising her child. Volaris swallows. “Right. Sorry.”

“You still hurtin’ any?”

“Only a little.”

Nethyn gives Rayya a look, who turns back to Volaris, and then to him. “I really don't think it's any of your business.”

The first time he has heard her speak, and her voice is hard. Pretty, but hard. It sends a shiver through his body: one that he stops midway, making Evesaes turn his way at the jerk it causes him.

“Whose business is what?” Volaris asks innocently, looking to Rayya with empty eyes.

There is no answer except for Nethyn, clearing his throat.

“I'll be outside, then,” he says.

Noontime sun shines on the lake, which ripples around his calves as he sits at the side of it, pant legs hiked up and stockings discarded to the grass a meter away. Nethyn lets his hair down, and stares at his reflection, distorted slightly by the breeze on the water. His fingers tangle in the grass, cool and a little damp. His brain is still a loud jumble of thoughts but here he is no longer stifled with them. Slowly, slowly, he lets himself down so that his head hits the ground, hair splayed out beneath it wherever it decides to land. It isn't the beach back home, not warm bay water and the cool shade of Tel Naga’s cast shadow, but if he closes his eyes and ignores the grass’ faint tickling, he can pretend.

So suddenly his peace ends, the branch calls out to him again, the little voice cries out to it in response. He squashes it, as well as he can for the moment.

He sits upright, shaking his head, shaking out the want.

The shuffling sound of bare feet in the grass prevents Nethyn from appreciating any more solitude. A voice over his shoulder -- he doesn't turn around, but he knows exactly who it is -- says hello, asks to sit down.

“Go ahead.”

Volaris sits beside him; she folds her legs beneath herself and spreads her hands in the grass before them both. She flinches when he goes to brush a few strands of hair out of her face, more out of courtesy than the intent to frighten, but laughs it off when she realizes what's going on.

“I just wanted to say, don't mind Rayya,” she says. “She's a little protective, but that's her job, you know? She's really a nice person, I promise.”

Nethyn huffs. “I wasn't upset about Rayya.”

“Then what?”

“I… I don't know. I hate that this is how you had to meet me.”

The two of them remain silent. This is particularly so as Volaris finds his shoulder to put her hand on, as comfort. At this point he might become aware of a wordless understanding between the two of them, if there was one at all. He glances at their reflections, then destroys them with only a twitch.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or, "Nethyn Gets Felt Up And Put Through The Proverbial Shredder By A Blind Woman".

“Lemme touch your face,” drawls Volaris as she reaches out toward a recoiling Nethyn. “I want to know what you look like.”

His neck reaches levels of flexibility he once thought it incapable of. “Do you really need to?!?” he shouts. Evesaes and Rayya watch nearby; Ev’s hand raised to her mouth as she chuckles, and Rayya watches with some unknowable degree of amusement. “Can't you just read me and memorize that?”

She grins. “Already have! You’re blocking everyone else in here, though. You mages are all the same… and that doesn't do anything for how you look, anyway. Just that you're there.”

“What's the point, then?”

“You sound about half as handsome as Evesaes said you are.”

Evesaes snorts and covers her face. “That's not what I said and you know it,” she insists. If she could blush at all, if enough blood flowed in her veins to make it to her face, Nethyn is sure she would now.

He sighs, surrenders, and lets her feel his face. Her hands are soft and warm, like she’s never held anything more dangerous than a piece of paper in her life (barring magic, but she doesn't strike him as the offensive mage type). They touch every dip and dimple, she makes a face when the ends of his ears don't come higher than his eyes, or in less time than they take.

“I like your beard,” she comments. “Ev, his nose is kind of like yours if it wasn't so pointy.”

“Compliment or insult?”

“You or him?”

“Either.”

“Just an observation.”

There comes the unavoidable feeling of judgement, as Volaris’ face changes while she memorizes his. Of Evesaes, who knows him a little better now, and of Rayya, who may as well and hasn't quite warmed up to him anyways. Volaris is so sure she will. She has so much faith, it’s really rather commendable. Nethyn knows better than to expect so much of strangers.

It brings him back. Back to Hekane, to confronting sera Indovulis as a young man; smooth-faced, hunched, body unmarred but for the ghost of the man’s eldest daughter. She'd loved him when he wasn't quite yet a man (and loved him plenty, and well), but for as adored as those so close to a living God were, even untouched as he yet was, he still was not enough for her father. He prodded, poked, drew back in disgust and horror as their eyes met. That day he went from monstrous to close-to-holy and then found himself right back there in minutes.

_Terrible deformation, punishment for the parents’ sins no doubt. Vanil was no Temple man and neither was Savilend. There’s better for you out there, dear. I'll see to it._

Volaris can't see that. Volaris is centuries too young to know about any of it.

Her hands have been off of his face for ten whole minutes.

Evesaes is at his shoulders, one hand there and the other on his chest. The right side, he notes, not the left. Where it's flat enough for his own comfort. “You okay?” she breathes, into his ear where only he can hear.

“Yeah.” He looks over to Volaris, who is in the hall, digging around in a bag and feeling for something. Rayya isn't at her side, but at Ev’s. “What's she doing?” he slurs. Language has yet to return to him.

“You looked like you were in pain,” Rayya explains. “She’s… Volaris, he’s fine, your medicine’s supposed to last for the month or Zaria’s going to start thinking you’re addicted.”

“Sure?”

“I'm fine,” Nethyn murmurs with a handwave. The only pain he can tell that he's experiencing isn't physical at all. “Are you all set with the face touching?”

She meanders back toward him. “Yeah, I think so.” A pleased smile graces her face. “What's the matter, anyway? You freaked out just as I was finishing up.”

“It's nothing.” He waves it off. ‘Explain’ is not a word in his vocabulary, not today.

The day flies. He does manage to eat between intermittent nausea, drinks more wine than he knows he should (it tastes absolutely foul, but wine is wine, even if it's Nord wine, and he shouldn't whine), faintly recalls the following before he drops into bed:

Reaching way up to Ev’s head and running his fingers through her hair the way she used to do for him, bringing her down to kiss the cool, smooth skin of her face, hearing Volaris giggle and Rayya hum her quiet laugh at the pair of them. Declaring, rather tipsily, that he would ‘totally go completely vampire’ on her, have some revenge for her sucking his blood all the time. Kissing her neck, her hand on his head and holding him, her genuine raucous laughter vibrating in her chest. Re-familiarizing himself with her backside.

She falls into bed next to him, though she insisted before that she would never touch him like this. It's saddening, in his state, but not so much while knowing that he can still fall asleep with his face in her chest, listening to a non-existent heartbeat as she holds him close, pins him to her.

He does, and sleeps the best that he has in days.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning for implied miscarriage. I swear, this is going to be the only time I put Volaris and Rayya through horrible things.

Late that next morning, hours after Volaris and Rayya have left for town, loud banging on the front door wakes Nethyn from his extended nap. He answers the door to a courier and his horse, half-asleep and rubbing sand from his eyes, only to find that it's Evesaes the man wants.

 

Or, more accurately, Volaris.

 

Ev drags him along with her, the both of them half-proper and only barely considered fully dressed, and doesn't spill a word of what's going on to him until they reach town. He is finally fully awake upon arrival, if not partially due to the rain then to the jostling of the horse.

 

He hates them. So much.

 

A guard is outside Zaria’s door, but makes quick way once Evesaes tells him who it is that they're here for. When the door closes behind them, and Nethyn has a chance to dry off momentarily, a terrible noise hits his ears -- like a woman on fire, screaming bloody murder, but he doesn't smell smoke. Ev bolts upstairs in an instant, where Nethyn follows out of sick curiosity.

 

It doesn't look as horrific as he'd initially made it out to be. No one is bleeding, no one is visibly injured, but Volaris may very well be dying. Wracked by whatever pain could cause someone to scream so, to jerk and writhe on a bed that might have once been made up well, her eyes are squeezed shut against the sweat on her forehead, fists balled in the sheets, legs kicking aimlessly. Rayya’s hands are wrapped around her wrist, her face anything but straight, and it is turned in the direction of the pair of them who are both (or at least, Nethyn is) utterly dumbstruck.

 

Pushing past Nethyn, Evesaes is at work fast. “When’d this start?” she demands. “What did she take today, what’s she eaten?”

 

Her question is directed at Zaria, but Rayya answers first. “I watched her take her medicine this morning. We were ready to leave, then she started complaining about her side.” Her voice creaks. “She wasn't even hungry, it's… it's bizarre.”

 

Between cries, Volaris pants out Rayya’s name first, then her aunt’s. One hand on her wrist grows tighter, the other moves to her cheek. Zaria takes Evesaes downstairs, to speak in private and to scour her shelves for something that might be of use. Nethyn situates himself on the bedside chair, feeling out of his element. Useless. 

 

Oddly empathetic. 

 

He moves a bit of sweat-dampened hair from her face.

 

Rayya’s composure does not slip any further than it already has. She looks at him in silence as Volaris’ cries begin to calm, and leave her only tearful and squirming. Her hold on the girl’s wrist doesn't falter, even though whatever had her seized in its grip is slowly loosening its hold.

 

Between sets of labored breaths, her lips move and words barely come out.

 

“Ray-ya…” she whispers. “Rayya…”

 

“Shh.” Rayya lowers her head, closer now to Volaris. “You’re safe. You’ll be alright.”

 

“Sorry…”

 

“You’re never sorry for speaking.”

 

She cringes again, her leg jerks inward, she heaves a breath in and out. “No, no…” she sobs. “Not that. Not like that.”

 

Her shaking voice takes a stab at Nethyn’s heart.

 

_ You know she isn't dying. _

 

Evesaes and Zaria both appear at the top of the stairs at that moment, the former narrow-eyed and the latter red in the face, exhausted or infuriated or both. Rayya makes room for Evesaes, who gingerly places her hand on her niece’s forehead and turns to Zaria. “See?” she says. “No fever. I don't think she’s sick.”

 

“It isn't her usual pain either.” Zaria moves in, politely nudging Nethyn aside. “That's just the joints.”

 

“Yeah… hey, Volaris. Can you talk? Can you hear me at all?”

 

“Uh-huh?”

 

She pulls a compliant Nethyn to her side. “Can you tell me who this is, hon?”

 

“That's Nethyn.” 

 

“Good, good. Great.” Now confident that her niece’s brain still works -- though Nethyn and Rayya could have told her anyway -- she releases him and tells him to stay put.

 

He won't wander when an intriguing dilemma has presented itself. He won't wander when the woman who let him in her house may need him, if not for confirmation that her ailment _isn't_ in her head. His nails dig into the opposite arms, folded behind his back, leaving little purple crescent-shaped indents in his skin.

 

Though Volaris seems better off than she was on arrival, she is still asked to lift her shirt when Evesaes’ suspicions take a more southerly turn. Nethyn understands enough of the body to know she could very well be in danger, that a cousin died only hours after stomach pains that left him in that state--

 

_ Look at her, she's perfectly healthy otherwise. _

 

Soft thumbs gingerly prod her flushed skin, and find no give. Rayya, dread distinct on her face, takes Volaris’ own in her hands and asks her why, why she was so sorry, what’s happening…

 

“Nethyn, Zaria.” Evesaes suddenly raises her head, jaw set, ears pricked. “Downstairs.  _ Yes, _ both of you.” She shoos the two of them toward the stairs. “She’ll be fine,” she whispers before Nethyn gets the chance to make a step downward. It's Zaria who needs to hear it most, he thinks, so he tugs on her sleeve for attention. “This just ain't something either of you need to see.”

 

They sit in a heavy silence, just the two of them, and no noise, no noise. Evesaes has given herself and the other two complete privacy in the form of a muffling spell; they can hear each other, but no one outside that little bedroom can hear them.

 

Zaria is far more composed than Nethyn. She tells him to sit, suggests a drink for the both of them. “They’ll be a while,” she says. Her voice is perfectly somber. She knows something Nethyn doesn’t, and he can tell. There is no alcohol in the cider that he can taste -- after graciously accepting a mug he buries his face from nose to lips in it. This is nothing celebratory, this is just warmth, but it does nothing to ward off the chill that settles over them both.

 

“Wouldn’t Evesaes need you up there?” Nethyn finally asks. “You know medicine, too.”

 

“There’s a fine line between alchemists and healers, Nethyn.” She sips, then rubs her upper lip and gestures to him. He quickly wipes off spilled cider, and she continues. “I’m afraid we’re on either side of it. Volaris is… she’s sick, but it’s nothing we can cure. It’s a constant thing for her. Ev and I, we just do our best to make it a little easier on her.”

 

“She’s not going to die, though.” More finality than he means seeps into his voice. He knows and knows that there is no way of knowing.

 

Zaria gives a grim chuckle. “We all do. She’s young, she’s got her whole life ahead of her, and we haven’t noticed anything more than a couple of joints that just got their age mistaken. Today’s not  _ her _ day, believe me.”

 

Nethyn clenches his teeth. “That’s not what I mean, though. Do you know what’s wrong with her now?”

 

“It’s personal.”

 

“For you or her?”

 

Tension fills the space between and around them, encapsulating the two. “Her. You’re awful concerned, for someone who only just met her.”

 

His grip tightens on his mug. “She let me in her home. Concern’s the least that I owe her.”

 

Before Zaria can answer him, or deny an answer again, Evesaes descends the creaking steps, wiping her hands ineffectively with a reddened cloth. Her movements are stiff, everything is low -- ears, head, eyes, voice. Nethyn stands and tries to take the bloodied thing from her (who knows if what she’s fighting off is tears of succumbing to thirst?) but she raises her hand and gives him pause. He sits back down, looking away as Zaria looks on, an even mix of horror and sorrow on her face, echoing Evesaes’. 

 

No more questions are necessary, or so Nethyn decides at that very moment.

  
“They need some time,” Evesaes mumbles. She makes a direct route to the basin and cleans her hands. "What a rotten surprise, huh..."


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's shorter than the rest, but I didn't have much to say in it that would still be relevant to the current situation. things should be picking up from here, another arc in a chapter or so, etc. etc.
> 
> thank you to everyone who's been leaving kudos and comments, or even just looking! it means a lot to me.

Nethyn’s understanding of the whole ordeal increases fractionally over the weeks it takes the household to recover from the reel it collectively took that day. It isn't that he dares to pry into the matter for himself, but that he watches, he listens. The walls aren't thick enough for his ears. Volaris and Rayya aren't quiet enough and they escalate far beyond simple arguments only to suddenly nosedive into half-comforted sobbing. Only Evesaes knows enough of personal privacy to ensure she has it, as it is only by chance that Nethyn finds her downstairs praying for the both of them.

 

What he learns, what he then surmises, is as follows:

 

Volaris, Thane of Falkreath under Jarl Dengeir, was appointed young Rayya as housecarl. Over time their relationship strengthened into untouchable friendship (something Rayya now insists will never change no matter what), and morphed and blossomed into the two of them sharing one room instead of two, push the beds together, reconsider and get a bigger one instead. This house, this bit of land by the lake, the goats, their love, all theirs together. They may as well be wives minus the marriage, which puts a shock through Nethyn as much as it could -- why they wouldn't marry is beyond him entirely. Maybe it was the threat of situations like this, that posed to tear them apart.

 

Rayya came from a well-off trader family. Volaris’ was broken up, over her illness and the parents’ own problems, and what she’d wanted of a family was one that worked out in the end, with someone who knew how that could come about. Rayya didn't argue, but perhaps she had a different idea of making it happen (too many parentless children in Skyrim, they might as well, and Nethyn saw her logic well enough -- Volaris mustn't have). 

 

What Rayya was upset about, was that Volaris had intended to surprise her in the first place. Despite reassurance that she would never in her life have sought out a man for anything else, Rayya was left feeling betrayed.

 

Poor communication got them where they are. Nethyn takes thorough mental notes.

 

Evesaes and Zaria come to one conclusion together, that either some aspect of Volaris’ condition -- the stress it must place on her body and soul -- or the medicine she took to combat it caused her to miscarry. A tragic thing that, like Ev said, she needs ample time to mourn, but the situation at home has her necessary attention elsewhere. Nothing works out in anybody's favor.

 

He finds her on the upstairs porch (which is really just the roof of the first floor with the railing attached), wringing hands with clearly visible veins. Clearing his throat as he approaches, Nethyn puts a hand on her shoulder and asks, “Where’d Rayya go?”

 

“She's out.” Her voice is quiet, younger than she is, but hoarse and interrupted by hiccups. “We need some time. I'm sure they told you that.”

 

Silent, Nethyn embraces her with one open arm, the other holding his coat closed in lieu of buttoning it. His lips become pursed when she doesn't bother to reciprocate or dismiss him. All she does is sit, stare out in front of them, and huff out a sigh every so often. 

 

“I think I fucked it up,” she says.

  
He only tightens his hold.


	20. Interlude II: Tower

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i banged this one out within a day, to hell with pacing! let's make some room for an old face and some new ones.

His eyes have grown accustomed to the dark -- does he have them anymore? He hasn't checked in a while.

 

He does. They're still there. All of him, flesh and stilled blood, all there. How much of a relief this is, he isn't sure. Is it still dark for real? Has he gone blind? There’s no way to tell.

 

Pacing in agitation, whistling his best to keep his ears and mouth occupied, he’s stopped suddenly by a sharp pull against his ankle that yanks him back, stumbling and catching himself in a desperate attempt to avoid falling on his backside.

 

Fingers threaded through his hair, grasping and tangling and tugging, he grounds himself to reality as he must just as a thin sliver of light casts itself on the floor from the door above when it opens. 

 

He steps back. The chain slackens. A head peeks through the open door, turns, looks, doesn't set its sights on him or his direction. There are no stairs but someone comes down anyway. They reach about blindly in the dark before a spark of a magelight is struck, illuminating their -- her -- face, and his as well, because though he hasn't adjusted to the light well enough to see detail, he can hear the beginning of a scream before he darts forward, covers her mouth, and tests the chain’s limits enough to pull his left leg an unnatural way.

 

She bites his hand, but he doesn't back off. Her eyes are big and for the most part lacking the slant that should come with ears like those; straight-across, pinkish, fearful. Like so many in this place, she just about radiates magickal energy that he is drawn to more than anything else. She's young, far younger than anyone he's seen come down here. It strikes him that she must be here by mistake, or morbid curiosity. When he is certain she won't make any more noise, he drops his hand and wipes it off on his pants with a disgusted sigh.

 

“Are you quite finished?” His own voice is alien. Older than he remembers. Harsh. A little pitched.

 

Hers wavers with nerves. “...no, I got a little more left in me.”

 

He raises his hand again and she quickly covers her own face. He doesn't expect her to come closer, but she does, her pointed brows raised and her free hand hovering midway in the air. Interested by her curiosity, he stays still, mouth drawn into a concerned frown.

 

Her collar is high and her shoulders narrow, her robes straight even in the chest. She regards him with less fear now, though that isn't to say at all that she is suddenly brave.

 

“How long have  _ you _ been down here?” she asks, posing it as a rhetorical question. Her hands go over his shoulders, and her eyes over his face, cringing and trying not to show too much disgust. “What  _ are _ you?”

 

Something sparks in her eyes, like the thoughts of a woman who’s read one too many cheap romance novels (not like he knows  _ how _ to look for that, or what it looks  _ like _ ) faces with a highly unconventional front cover. 

 

He steps back, all he can do, limping from the stinging pain in his ankle. She mimics him almost exactly. His boundaries have been realized. 

 

“Don't think this doesn't mean I'm not happy to see somebody new.” It seems as though she needs some reassurance, by the look on her face, knowing she has overstepped herself. She's too young for worries like that. 

 

Before she can respond, the door closes from the outside. Murmurs from behind it, a quiet  _ click _ , send them both turning on a heel towards it, both their hearts jumping into its respective throat.

 

“They can't know I'm here,” the girl whispers -- to herself, not him. “I'm gonna be in so much trouble…”

 

“Did they lock it?”

 

“Yeah, I think so…”

 

His face set in resolve, he turns to her and says, “Scream.” She looks at him dumbly, which is reasonable enough since screaming was the exact thing he wanted her to not do before, and surely he can't mean this now. “This place isn't soundproof. Believe me. You want to get out, then you're going to get those lungs working again.”

 

Before she does, he leans in and whispers, “Don't come here again, you hear?”

 

* * *

 

“So you’re telling me Uvoilar was down there with him… on her own accord.”

 

“Master, she's an adolescent, you can't expect them to think rationally. What else would explain it? He can't use magic, he can't influence her in any way.”

 

“Oh, no, I didn't. I'm shocked it took her this long to find him. But this needs to be looked into, and no I  _ don't  _ think she needs to be punished for a little curiosity, so close that mouth of yours before you say something you don't mean.”

 

Hekane heaves a sigh and returns to filing parchment. Quill in her teeth, fingers stained with ink, she stops every now and then to add a few words to one paper, her hips moving subtly in her chair to music in her head. “I don't like how she could just get in. People aren't supposed to know about that.”

 

“And naturally, everyone  _ does _ .” 

 

“Which means there’s a problem.”

 

“Nothing wrong with a little emergency one-up,” the wizard muses. “It's no Corprusarium, and I'm sure Fyr would’ve easily nabbed  _ himself  _ a lich if he hadn't been doing his own thing--”

 

“And himself.”

 

“It's unwise to speak ill of the dead, Hekane.”

 

“You think  _ muthsera _ Fyr would have let himself die?”

 

“I doubt he would have let his Corprusarium go down, and nothing in the world would have given him enough time to transport it, into Oblivion or otherwise.” He shakes his head. “Enough of that, enough of that… what's that you're writing over there?”

 

“This?” Hekane lays down her work for a moment to pick up the letter and touch the ink to ensure its dryness. “Just something for a friend. You remember Corentin?”

 

“Vaguely. The Breton, right?”

 

“Yes, him. He's found an Ayleid ruin in High Rock and thought I'd be interested… unfortunately, I'm stuck here with you.” The two laugh, but then Hekane takes on a serious expression. “ _ However _ , I think Nethyn has a bit more time on his hands than I do.”

 

“Nethyn?”

 

“Vari. You don't know him? I would've thought you were cousins at least.”

 

He hums. “I would've heard of him. You knew him from Sadrith Mora, right?”

 

“Knew him from Sadrith Mora,  _ knew _ him  _ in _ Sadrith Mora…”

 

“I only knew a Vanil. Evostis’ boy, though I think they both died during the Crisis.”

 

“Yeah,” Hekane insists. “Vanil had a son,  _ Galien _ .” Her frustration begins to peak, and she pauses for breath.

 

Galien takes that opportunity to speak. “Vanil had a  _ daughter _ , and she died during infancy. I was there when they interred her,  _ Hekane _ .”

 

She sputters, and thrusts out her arm to nearly spill ink all over the desk. “I don't know what else to tell you! I met Vanil,  _ and _ Savilend, and he is a fifty-fifty mix of them both!  _ I'm  _ going to inform him of this ruin, this-- _ Bisnensel _ \--and maybe, just  _ maybe _ if you'll be  _ so _ kind as to let me, I'll meet up with him there.”

 

Upper lip curled, Galien turns to the wall and pretends to give her some consideration.

 

“No.”

 

“What?!”

 

“I need you here, so we can deal with this problem. Our  _ guest _ must be getting restless if he’s hurting himself trying to talk to people.”

 

“I thought liches were solitary creatures.”

 

He huffs. “Not at all. I'll gladly let him have company, but not with the impressionable.” Drifting into his chair, pulling a small stack of papers from the pile Hekane had just finished sorting -- clean, clever, not toppling the pile even in the slightest -- he skims it for a while. Hekane gets a brief glimpse of what looks like some kind of blueprints before Galien slips it back into the pile.

  
“Come to think of it… I've changed my mind. I'd like to meet your friend Nethyn.”


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW warning for almost-sex, vague depictions of off-jerking, and... whatever the hell it is Nethyn's doing with Alteration-slash-fleshcrafting.

Months pass. The tension between Rayya and Volaris loosens enough for them to share a room together again. Frostfall comes about, living up to its name as dew freezes on the ground one morning. The old nanny goat passes quietly from age in the middle of the night, the lake begins to cool and thin sheets of ice form at its banks. 

 

Nethyn wakes up, huddled under the blankets, his back pressed against Ev’s chest. One hand is pressed against the flat, scarred side of his chest, cleverly avoiding the other half even in her sleep. It stays there, though the other has wandered downward, beneath the waist of his pants, or maybe it was there as they both drifted off that night. He can't remember, but he realizes it's there when he moves forward and feels several long fingers brushing against a sensitive spot. He murmurs incoherently even to himself and flips over, nestling his face between Ev’s neck and shoulder and finding a certain comfort in the way her hand has shifted to his hip and back. 

 

His own hand snakes back down to ease the faint tingling that's left, catching himself between thumb and forefinger and not daring to go much deeper. One breath hitches in his throat and his mouth hangs open against her skin, his leg hooked around hers.

 

Suddenly she turns her head and kisses his cheek, just as he raises his fingers away from the slowly ebbing throb. His face turns a brilliant shade of purple, he can feel it, but she doesn't seem to care. “Morning,” she whispers.

 

“M-morning!” Nethyn jerks away from her and hurriedly dries his hand on his trousers. “How long have you been awake…?”

 

“Long enough.” Evesaes grins and dives in to close the gap between them. Her teeth graze his skin without breaking the surface. “You finished there?”

 

“Shut up,” he huffs. “If you're hungry just go for it, all the blood’s up here now anyways.”

 

She takes his words to heart. Two needlepoint fangs pierce Nethyn’s neck, the gentle lapping of a pointed tongue eases the discomfort slightly -- or redirects it, anyhow. Nethyn bites his lip and clenches his thighs, makes a highly undignified noise somewhere between a squeak and a gasp. “Ev--!” 

 

Her head raises in a hurry, blood on her lips and still flowing freely from him. “Too much?” she asks sheepishly.

 

“I misjudged… too soon…”

 

Evesaes laughs, finishes up quickly, and ruffles his bed-messy hair. “That's just the automatic switch for you, eh? Not the ears?” As if in response, his ears twitch, and she reaches up to stroke one.

 

“I disprove every stereotype about meri sexuality, didn't you know?” He punctuates his sarcasm with a faux-haughty lift of the chin.

 

She wraps him up in her arms, giggling with him and rolling over onto her back, with him on her front. He pushes himself up into sitting, hands flat on her chest, fingers spread, knees on either side of her lap. Her hands come back to his hips, soft enough to press into them, and rub small circles on his stomach with her thumbs. 

 

Soft squishy flesh in her hands, Evesaes leans up and catches Nethyn’s bottom lip between her teeth. “Show me that thing you do,” she whispers into his mouth.

 

He works off his pants, basking in the lidded look of Ev’s bright eyes. Now on all fours atop her, taking in her wolflike grin and besting it, he reaches down and inward to take his semi-altered flesh between his fingers. Beneath them forms a semi-solid, translucent mass of magicka (that he can  _ feel _ draining from him, much too fast, it makes the arm holding him up tremble), slowly taking on a phallic shape that he works into something a little more accurate, akin to shaping clay. It warps the parts already existing, as if to fill a mold.

 

Evesaes’ hand clasps around his wrist, holding him as he shakes. He finishes eventually, then leans down to plant a wet kiss on her cheek, humming a quiet tune and nuzzling against her ear. Her free fingers encircle the new, temporary, form.

 

“Amazing.” Thumbing the tip, chuckling at the whine it gets from him, she takes some time to familiarize herself with this new discovery until someone knocks, distressingly firm, on the door.

 

Simultaneously the two of them shout, “ _ WHAT?! _ ”

 

Volaris’ strained, nervous voice comes from the other side: “I don't wanna interrupt the  _ lovebirds _ but there’s a letter for Nethyn if he wants it!” She then scurries downstairs, afraid to hear either their wrath or their resuming.

 

They look at each other and burst into laughter.

 

Once Nethyn has finally let go of his magic and returns partially to normal, he wriggles back into his pants, and Evesaes drags herself out of bed. He watches as she combs her fingers through her messy hair, pale grey on gold, and he barely feels his face shift into a wide grin. 

 

_ Truly, you are blessed.  _

 

“Yeah…” he sighs.

 

“Yeah what?”

 

Evesaes’ voice startles him from his enabled reverie. “Just thinking about what might’ve been,” he jokes.

 

She reaches back and swats playfully at the air. “Go on, get your letter!”

 

Never in his life did he think he would come to like any kind of egg, but still he sticks half a boiled chicken egg in the side of his mouth and idles as he skims the paper.

 

> _ Sera _ Vari,

 

Well, that was odd. Something he hasn’t heard in a very long time.

>  
> 
> I understand that it has been an unacceptably long time since we’ve spoken, and I deeply apologize that our first time since had to only be in writing. I’ll make this quick, as I have much work to do these days:
> 
>  
> 
> A friend of mine has come across a discovery that he thought would interest me, but as I am busy I find myself unable to join him. I thought of you when he mentioned ancient Ayleid ruins, recently discovered (or perhaps re-discovered, he wasn’t entirely clear) in Bangkorai, near Halcyon Lake. I trust you with finding your own way, so I haven’t enclosed a route or anything like that. You know how to speak to drivers, and how to walk if you must. You don’t even have to go, if you aren’t interested anymore, but know that the opportunity is fleeting and my friend will find someone else if he feels the need to.
> 
>  
> 
> If you ask for Corentin Duval, you should be pointed in the right direction. Though he wasn’t living in High Rock when he last contacted me, I believe he should be back by now, at the very least seeing family if not starting on this project of his. Be respectful -- he comes from a family of noblemen and he  _ acts like it _ . 
> 
>  
> 
> I hope Skyrim is treating you well.
> 
>  
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Hekane Indovulis

 

He blinks. Rubs his eyes. Reads it again. 

 

“You’re not going to vomit, are you?” Rayya asks from the other side of the table. 

 

“Oh, is he?” Volaris pipes up. “You should probably get help for that.”

 

Nethyn begins to speak but realizes he still has a whole half-egg lodged between his teeth and cheek. He sighs through his nose, raises a finger in a silent gesture of ‘wait please’, and wastes no time actually eating it after all the time he’s already wasted in  _ not _ .  “I just got a letter from someone I haven’t heard from in two hundred years, that’s all.”

 

_ So nonchalant! _

 

“If she thinks I’m just going to take her word after hearing absolutely  _ nothing _ since she ran off to the mainland…”

 

“She’s dead wrong?”

 

“She’s lost it?”

 

“ _ Who _ lost it?” Evesaes is silent coming down the stairs, save only for her voice. “Who’s it from, Neth?”

 

He folds up the letter the way it came, smoothing down the creases beneath his thumb. “Hekane Indovulis. You wouldn’t know her. She only wrote,” he glares down at the paper. “To try and get my interest in the old Ayleids going again.” The other half of the egg gets cut into two more manageable pieces before he decides on something different and takes a slice of last night’s applecake from the center of the table, then takes his irritation out on it. “Two hundred years, Ev!”

 

She takes her seat beside him and folds her hands atop the tablecloth. “Did she say where it was?” she asks as she reaches across to hand Volaris a napkin for the milk on her lip. The way the younger woman pouts as she wipes it off gets a brief chuckle out of both Rayya and Nethyn.

 

“Bangkorai. At least a week of nonstop travel from here, and that’s if I  _ don’t _ have to walk.”

 

“And as we all know, you Telvanni hate to use your legs.”

 

“ _ You _ try installing stairs in giant towers and still keeping undesirables out!”

 

Rayya whispers something into Volaris’ ear, who covers her mouth in scandal.

 

Staring daggers into each other’s eyes, Nethyn finally breaks first and looks away. He runs his fingers over the letter again.

 

“So,” Ev muses, twirling a strand of hair around the tip of a finger. “You're gonna do it, right?”

  
“ _ Of course!  _ Who do you think I am?”


	22. Interlude: Better

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nethyn's story has been put on hold for the time being while I figure out how to get him to High Rock. For now, enjoy a short blurb about what the Dragonborn's been getting up to these days.
> 
> I'm not doing these little asides for nothing, I swear.

Aranni gazes up at the mountain. It seems to stare back down at him, judging, with all the knowledge that he has -- that he's on a strictly timed schedule, only postponing the inevitable no matter what he does now -- and more.

 

He let Esbern go off on his own. The old man could handle himself against Thalmor, he can handle himself all the way to Riverwood. So many months spent with the Greybeards up on that mountain. Delphine with her insane theories. He wants time. He _needs_ it.  _ Alone. _

 

Time during which he mourns. The life he wanted, here at any rate but not as a vessel for dragon souls, a living tool of some profane magic. Skyrim, no doubt its ruin set into motion by his coming. The people slain in his wake, by him or some other. Lydia, Hroki, Tor, Malborn, oh, Malborn… 

 

The old Dunmer who’d stopped him in Whiterun so long ago, he considers, was right. He's too young for such troubles. For being the Jarl's errand-boy at best, for the weight of the lives of so many at worst. 

 

He's too young for this.

 

Fate likes them that way.

 

He has to move forward. One foot in front of the other.  _ Move, damnit! You think that any heroes who came before you got anywhere by moping? _

 

He puts out of mind the tales he's read; of the Hero of Kvatch who lost her mind and disappeared into Oblivion, of the Nerevarine who fled to Akavir to escape the looming threat of further need and leadership. Suddenly he wonders what happened to them, what horrors drove them to these ends with no documentation to speak of.

 

_ The Dragonborn will be better, _ he thinks.  _I'll be better._

 

But how can he be the Dragonborn when the very last thing he feels capable of doing is going to Riverwood and hearing what Delphine and Esbern have to say about the dragons? How, when trekking back up the mountain is tied with it for last place? Duty is duty, but he couldn't care less.

 

Right outside Riften, he plops down on his butt and contemplates what got him here in the first place: poor planning. He'd been a day ahead of schedule; maybe he needed that extra day. A dragon circles overhead some miles away, visible behind the trees only by the constant change its movement creates in the scenery. 

 

He wonders what will happen if he Shouts. Will it attract the beast? Drive it off? Perhaps it's best not to test that theory so close to a city…

  
Feeling a sudden surge of recklessness, Aranni picks himself up off the ground and takes off in its direction.


	23. Interlude II: Drain

The second time Uvoilar visits, she finds her friend thrashing about in his bed, sheet thrown to the side, kicking and tugging at the tether despite his unconsciousness. She stays away, fearful that he may strike her on accident, but still she watches. His mouth hangs open as if to scream, but no sound comes out but for a quiet rasp. 

 

As she comes close, his convulsions stop, he snaps back into sitting, panting. She notices better now, how his face looked far closer to normal when it was strained, but upon relaxation, on the loosening of the top lip, his double-cleft has become more pronounced. It intrigues her.

 

He catches her staring.

 

“What did I tell you?!” he barks hoarsely.

 

“I know!” Suddenly Uvoilar is on the defensive. “I just wanted to.”

 

He stands up off of the bed. “Oh, so it's a matter of you  _ wanting to _ now. I won't be taking whatever wrath your master has because you wouldn't curb your curiosity!” Approaching her, this time taking care to consider his allowed range of motion, his hands ball into fists from frustration and his upper lip curls. “Do you understand?”

 

She raises her hands and backs off, far away from the furthest he can reach at arm’s length. He’s short, it isn't far. “He isn't my master, first off,” she says. “He's my grandfather.”

 

The lich pauses his fury for a moment. His tongue pokes out through his lips and he pulls a face of contemplation.

 

“So I’m gonna stay,” she continues, like she’s the elder, she’s in charge --  _ she is _ , he laments,  _ she’s the one with the power here. _ “It’s really big news, you know? Finding out your grandpa’s got a  _ lich _ in the basement. How’d he do that? Is it this?” She darts behind him and lifts up the chain. Small, light, but she pales immediately upon holding it and drops the thing.

 

“Please don’t touch that.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I won’t.” The girl shudders. “It’s a magicka sink.”

 

“You know what that is?”

 

Shuffling away from it, eyeing it, she nods. “Yeah. Same kind of magic they used on slave bracers in the Third Era.” Her voice drops low, and she looks into his eyes (she has to bend a little). “Gods, it’s brutal… drains your--”

 

“Magicka, willpower, I know.” He kicks at the air, recoils at the renewal of an old pain. “If Vari thinks he’s broken me in  _ any _ way, he has another thing coming  _ completely! _ ”

 

“How long have you been down here?”

  
“...I'm not sure.”


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NSFW Warning. Nethyn and Evesaes finally have some precious, uninterrupted alone time before Nethyn leaves.

“So if you haven't got a cock--”

 

“Ev, please…”

 

“No, no, I wanna know. How d’you make it feel like you're hard when you’re on me like that?”

 

“This is really not the time!” 

 

One bag sits in the corner of the bedroom, packed and ready to go. It stands as the pinnacle of order on the sheet-strewn floor, surrounded by discarded articles, haphazardly thrown blankets, a skewed mattress on the bedframe. The one quilt remaining on the bed only covers part of one of two bodies. The other, fully clothed, sits on the opposite end.

 

Nethyn is too busy keeping the quilt over his chest to threaten to finish what Evesaes has started this time. “Please, Ev…? Volaris promised to leave us alone for an  _ hour, _ and I'd like to be fucked with no interruptions, we’re on a tight schedule…”

 

“Not the only tight thing here, eh?” She slides a finger into him, arching it in the same direction that his back immediately reaches toward. “Do you ever--?”

 

“N-no.” Putting an ample amount of space between his thighs, Nethyn sucks in his bottom lip, sighs, and continues just the same as Evesaes. “I just… I don't know, I like it better when other people do-- _ aah! _ ” He takes in a sharp breath as she adds another finger and hits the deepest he can take her. “A little fast, don't you think?!”

 

She withdraws slowly, steadily. “Sorry.” Not all the way, though; she barely brushes her thumb against his erect clit and keeps her wrist still when his hips jerk inwards. “Is this all you want then? Nothin’ special, just…” She punctuates her own sentence with another curve of her fingers.

 

“I just don't understand why  _ you're _ not into it,” he remarks breathlessly. “You never used to have a problem with sex, it's not like I don't know what's there.”

 

Within seconds, she opts to shut him up with her tongue, diving between his legs. He frees one hand and grasps her hair lightly in his fingers, tugging, but not so hard as to hurt. It doesn’t distract him in the slightest, but he understands that maybe, just maybe, it’s not his place to ask this time.

 

That evening, in the same re-made bed, closed book in hand and supporting a short piece of parchment, Nethyn scribbles out a response, scratches out so many poorly worded openings, crumples so many papers into balls and tosses them out of sight. Nothing is right. His brain is hazy from exertion and a lack of sleep. 

 

That next morning, he slings his bag over one shoulder, sets his hair and face in order, gives his thanks to Volaris, Rayya, and Evesaes. As always, his future lies westward.

 

> Dearest Hekane,
> 
>  
> 
> I have decided to take your advice, and have set off for High Rock as I am sending this. I doubt your letter made it at all in a timely fashion, so if I arrive and find that your friend has already gone on without you or I, I’ll try not to be too disappointed. Winter has come and I believe it may get in the way, you know how snow is, but you caught my interest.
> 
>  
> 
> How are you? How are the highlands? Who are you working for now, what is he having you do? Do please tell me you’re more than just an accountant now. 
> 
>  
> 
> I can’t say I have been much better than usual. Blacklight was a Redoran-dominated  _ bore _ and you couldn’t go outside without tasting ash. Solstheim did its level best to kill me, be it metaphorically or literally, but you know I’m resilient enough. Skyrim is cold. Very cold. I hate it, I nearly had my nose broken in the first town I stayed in, but I met a lovely  _ womer _ I knew from the Crisis and in short, I have been living with her for the past three months. Yes, like that. Yes, I’m bragging. 
> 
>  
> 
> The place is truly bizarre. The written language is incomprehensible. They talk about dragons in the center of town, yes, dragons! I lost my magic, for a time, and automatically people thought me to be female (my friend says I don’t look it, and though you regretfully have not seen the progress I have made, I imagine you would feel the same way). A Bosmer in his twenties was off doing mercenary work for some man in charge of the city, acting like some kind of adult himself… I don’t understand it, I will not try to understand it.
> 
>  
> 
> I don’t know how to close out this letter, but I have nothing left to say. I am very tired. I hope you are doing well, and I hope you are able to make it to High Rock. I would love to see you again.
> 
>  
> 
> With love,
> 
> Nethyn Vari

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this ends Saving Face! Not to say that this ends Nethyn's story as a whole, but I figured it would be best to give him a quick break while I work on other stories to tie in. Yes, there's still a reason for having all these intermissions mid-story. Yes, I'm working on building up to one of them right now. For now, this is where we will leave Nethyn -- en route to High Rock and the brutal Fuckening I have in store for him as you all probably know.
> 
> He'll be okay.
> 
> Thank you, everybody, for reading, bookmarking, and leaving kudos/comments! I'll see you in the next part! :D


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